One of my favorite things about physics is thinking about real world applications. I think the king of this was probably the physicist Richard Feynman. (From the awesome book Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman.)
You can find him on youtube- there are videos of him talking about these weird puzzles, or just interesting things like how rubber bands work. My favorite: Why does a mirror swap left and right but not up and down?
Another favorite: how fire works.