How to replace 30 laptops (and $10,000) with 150 sheets of paper
The professor for my software engineering course in college posed a problem with a non-tech answer similarly.<p>You have a cabin in the woods, with electricity and a freezer.  You go hunting and bag a deer with much more meat than can be used in one visit, so you freeze it for use on a future visit.  But you want to know while you are away if the electricity fails for any length of time so that the meat may have thawed and spoiled.<p>After the class spent most of a period arguing over remote monitoring systems and temperature sensors and the like, the professor revealed the simple answer.  Freeze a block of ice in the freezer and mark its height.  If it is shorter when you return, the power was out so some of it melted.