A portable jigsaw is adapted to provide an inexpensive large-scale demonstration of the inverted pendulum experiment. Stroboscopic study reveals interesting features of the motion of the inclined pendulum, as well as the possibility that no pendulum is ever quite inverted. Kalmus [Am. J. Phys. 38, 874 (1970)] and Kapitza [Collected Papers by P. L. Kapitza, edited by D. TerHaar (Pergamon, London, 1965)] theories are used as analogs to study the behavior of the inverted and the partially inverted pendulum.
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M.M. Michaelis (1985) studied this question.
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