One of the fun things about Angry Birds exploding back in mid-2010 is that by late 2010 everyone was looking for new angles to cover the hottest game in the universe. Wired’s Rhett Allain took the challenge of analyzing the physics of Angry Birds, and came up with some neat findings. Using video tracking software and using physics formulas he figured out that the slingshot in Angry Birds would need to be 5m tall, with the red bird being 70cm tall.

He’s back at it again, this time with Angry Birds Go. Using a method of video analysis similar to looking at the Mars Curiosity landing video, Rhett Allain figured out the following:

For the first jump in my test video, the car traveled 40.6 meters (as reported by the game) and it took 0.95 seconds. This gives a speed of:

If you like different units, the speed is 95.6 mph. Zoom. Faster than I would have thought. Well, in my test video, I have two more jumps. Using the same idea, I get speeds of 44.90 m/s and 55.50 m/s.

He’s got some other interesting stuff over in his article, including that tracks are around a mile long, and the hills you’re flying down are actually only at a 5 degree incline. The article ends with a series of questions, including whether or not the game simulates air resistance. I’m not good enough at math to figure any of this out, but I’m glad someone is.