Of course I'm not the first to look at the physics in Super Mario Bros--there was this interesting paper looking at the optimal jump to get to the highest point on the flag at the end of the level. There is also a nice page looking at the acceleration of jumping Mario in the different games. This is a great chance to take another look at the physics of Mario. The best way to get data from a video game is to first capture the action and then use video analysis. With video analysis, I can get position-time data by looking at the location of the object in each frame.

The analysis of a video game can be a game in itself. The process of trying to figure out the underlying physics engine in a game is just like science--but much cheaper. It's been a while since I've explored the mechanics in Angry Birds (the game), but I have quite a few posts on the topic. In my first Angry Birds post, I examined the trajectory of a bird after leaving the slingshot. The first thing I found was that the flight path was indeed a parabola.