Can You Win the Hunger Games... Before it Even Starts?

Yes, and before you say anything, I guess not being chosen as tribute is kind of winning (a method made easier by being in a Career district), but this isn't about that.

It also isn't about the idea of assassinating your opposition while in the training tower (but I may cover that later, if it strikes my fancy).

Instead, I'm going to focus on the 60 seconds you have to wait on your platform before the Hunger Games start.

This is how you do it.

These platforms are surrounded by mines, as anyone would tell you. Meanwhile, everyone else's platform is surrounded by mines. And as Katniss mentions, they're very easily set off, as a wooden ball, rocks and even apples are heavy enough to set them off.

But could you bring anything into the arena to set them all off? After all, you want to win the Hunger Games, not just make it easier for yourself. But first, we need to figure out a few things.

How much weight is necessary to set off a mine?

Well we don't know the weight of the ball, nor how heavy the rocks that Katniss expected to throw were, but we can see if you can bring in anything the weight of the apples. We can assume that the apples are just going to be common apples, since it's never mentioned that they're anything different. The average weight of an apple is between 70g and 100g.

This means that marbles are out, weighing in at an average 4.54 grams, so you'd need between 14 and 20 just to kill one tribute, and that's assuming you managed to get them all on the same mine, which is kind of hard when you can't even see them. Ball bearings aren't much better with a weight of 4.71g. I'm just going to assume beads aren't heavy enough to be the same weight as an apple.

We could also consider gemstones. Quartz is the most common gemstone and so the most likely that any tribute would be able to have it. It also requires 25 cubic centimetres to get the smallest weight required... so, not exactly easy to carry 5.75m² of it around, let alone find that much in any district in Panem.

Of course, this might not be the lightest weight, just the lightest we know about, so this may not prevent you from winning this way. So the next question is... could you throw it?

We'll assume best circumstances, and that you're an average 18 year old who can throw averagely far. An average girl can throw 22.86 meters and an average boy can throw 58.52 meters.

This means most people wouldn't be able to throw far enough, especially considering the huge cornucopia in the way.

Okay, so now we've managed to find some material heavy enough (which could be impossible), and throw it far enough (which most people can't do), but could you still succeed?

Probably not.

After all, the Gamemakers are always watching, and if they realise what you're doing, they've got the tools to stop it right there. With explosions.

Seems like assassination is the more possible idea after all...

Kat.