I didn't make up this methodology and it's genuinely not a trick question (or not intended as such), it's a simple example of an actual class of questions that researchers ask when trying to determine whether a model of the world exists. The paper I linked uses a ball and a plank iirc. Often they use a much wider range of objects eg: something like "Suggest a stable way of stacking a laptop, a book, 4 wine classes, a wine bottle and an orange" is one that I've seen in a paper for example.