Cupcakes and how to approach them

'And so,' said Bertha,'we place a warped twisty plank on the ramp like this and then Cyril rolls down the ramp thus flattening and straightening the plank and then collects his reward, of one little cake, when he gets to the bottom. I got the idea from when he was skiing.'

'Interesting!' said Captain Bill,'but surely you've placed the cake too close to the end of the ramp, Cyril forward momentum will simply result in him rolling over that as well!'

'Well now,' replied Bertha,'that's where it gets really interesting. By varying the distance and angle of the cake to the ramp we can dramatically increase the difficulty rating.'

'Ahem!' interrupted Cyril,'if I might enquire as to the icing?'

Bertha consulted her record sheet.

'This will be number 37, so that makes it lemon and ginger,' she replied.

'And the wind speed?' asked Cyril.

'7mph, East and West,' said Bertha.

'In which case,' said Cyril after a quick think,'I shall attempt a barrel roll with a half pike finish.'

Bertha made a note on her sheet and then made a few calculations.

'That'll be a tariff of 4.1 which means if he makes it down successfully and manages to eat the cake, while still moving, without creating any crumbs he'll score 285 points and gain a bonus slice of Norma's Super Triple Sponge Sandwich.'

'Excellent!' mooed Captain Bill,'I'm tempted to have a go myself.'

But Bertha simply pointed to a large pile of straightened planks that needed to go back to the ship....and Captain Bill decided it might be best if he got them moved.