One interesting thing to note is the structural difference
of the spoon shaft and the spoon ladle or cup. As can be
seen in the finite element model shown in Fig. 3, the ladle of
the spoon is structurally rigid and deforms very little when
a force is applied to the tip.
5
Also, the shaft of the spoon
behaves as a flexing or bending beam, whose behavior will
depend on the location of the applied force. Thus, in order to
simplify the experiment the lateral displacement should be
measured consistently at the location of the applied force, just
below the cup of the spoon