Egg Drop Contest

[Matt_Kaplan1902]

For my physics class I need to design a way to have a raw egg fall 30 ft without cracking. For full points, it needs to be under 4 inches in lenght and width. Any ideas would be greatly appriciated.

Thanks in Advance.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

google it up

[Rickertsen2]

For my physics class I need to design a way to have a raw egg fall 30 ft without cracking. For full points, it needs to be under 4 inches in lenght and width. Any ideas would be greatly appriciated.

Thanks in Advance.
This is where you turn to: http://www.uline.com
I would try bubble wrap in a very rigid shell(metal), wrapped in yet more padding. A freind of mine did this once b4. If i can remember, i will ask him what he did. Can it deploy? If so, a parachute might be a very good way to go. You can cut a rather effective once out of garbage bag material.

[generalbrando]

I've done exactly that before and I know how you can do it. Great Stuff. There's this expanding insullation in a can called Great Stuff. It's hard to use (don't get it on skin!) but if you dip an egg in vasoline and then surround it with this stuff (use a little box or something) then you can cut into it and take the egg in and out. Then just use a couple tight rubber bands to hold it together (if you cut in squigles or something, it's less likely to come apart!).

Hope this helps.

[Aaron Lussier]

Are you allowed to use anything you want? Or do you have a set list of materials? Any rules given to you will also help.

[KenWittlief]

I heard once the absolute best packing material for an egg drop contest is grass trimmings from cutting your lawn. I didnt check where you are, it might be a problem for some of us to get the lawn mower out tomorrow.

Its been so cold here in rochester NY that I called Microsoft to see if I could get StormWindows for my PC.

Everytime I open a window the giraffe is unbearable!

[Clark Gilbert]

For my physics class I need to design a way to have a raw egg fall 30 ft without cracking. For full points, it needs to be under 4 inches in lenght and width. Any ideas would be greatly appriciated.

Thanks in Advance.
Inflatable airbags!! Do it the NASA way! :p

I would use this memory foam stuff that NASA created way back whenever. Also if you could get your hands on a goose down pillow that would probaby work really well. A parachute would be really cool, but if you can't attach anything to the egg then it's not possible.

[KenWittlief]

oooooooooh.. your in florida! they dont have real grass there, do they?

they have that nasty stuff that slices your feet open!

[kevin.li.rit]

I would try bubble wrap in a very rigid shell(metal), wrapped in yet more padding. A freind of mine did this once b4. If i can remember, i will ask him what he did. Can it deploy? If so, a parachute might be a very good way to go. You can cut a rather effective once out of garbage bag material.

Parachute could work, or you could do what my friend did, he wrapped it up in gardening foam. I think it could of gone another 10 feet up.
I heard my physics teacher would give your apparatus a starting velocity if you were a trouble maker. I've also heard he tosses another egg at the same time as tossing your apparatus to make it look like it fell out, lol.

[KenWittlief]

a parachute quickly reaches its 'terminal velocity' - which means, if you design one large enough to achieve a suffienctly slow downward velocity, then it doesnt matter what height you drop it from - it will decend at the same steady rate (assuming you dont start out in the vacuum of space :c)

[mightywombat]

haha. I did this in a class once. One kid encased his egg in many pounds of Jell-O and placed it all in many plastic shopping bags... what a splat. We were graded on the mass of the aparatus and whether the egg survived. My instructor used a chunk of insulation (like the pink stuff but not in sheets), cut a hole in it and stuck the egg in and it lived. I used the stuff that is used to stuff pillows with to pad my egg. A big thing is to make sure it doesn't bounce... all that impulse force and whatnot (I don't quite remember all of it) but I remember that when something bounces more force is applied to the object and hence the egg. Have fun!

[Kevin Ray]

One way, which may not be feasible because of the 4" constraint, is to tie a knot in a stocking, insert the egg, then knot the stocking on the other side of the egg. Now stretch the "hammock" between both ends of a rigid box. As long as the egg can't touch the sides of the box, it should withstand the fall. This worked for us in our HS physics class (shoe box, third floor). Good luck!

[KenWittlief]

a parachute could easily be folded up so its under 4" when released.

[Greg Needel]

i won my schools in the 7th grade and promise that this will work everytime.

take a milk carton (one of those small ones from the cafateria)

get some pipe inslation (the black stuff by your water heater) availble at home dept

put a 1.5 x 1.5 peice on the bottom of the carton ( enough to cover the bottom)

then wrap 1 layer arround the egg
put wrapped egg in milk carton

put another piece of inslation on top and then close the carton

secure with rubber bands and you will win

we shot mine out of a slingshot prob 300 feet and no breaks. it will also be super light weight and in your size constraints

[Ragin_Kage]

I rembering doing this in 7th grade too,... those grass clippings would work, i used flour and corn starch, just in a little ziplock bad, dropped it off our school roof 3 stories up, and it was fine, worked perfectly....i also tried using shedded egg carton and corn flakes cereal, but i wouldnt recomend those haha, they didnt work too good :ahh:

[Gadget470]

A really cool looking and easy way to do this is with either normal printer paper or with straws.

Roll the paper or use straws to make the edges for an open 8x8x8 cube.
Secure corners with masking tape.
Make a smaller cube with rolled paper or straws to hold the egg.
Wrap egg in tissue paper to make it fit better into the small cube.
From the corners of each cube, place an S Shaped paperclip ("open" the paper clip to an S shape)
From each clip then place a small rubber band. Band should be small enough to be pulled tight at the distance, but not near breaking.

all in all, it should look vaugly something like this:
_______
|\ /|
| \___/ |
| |EGG| |
| /¯¯¯\ |
|/ \|
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

The rubber bands create a pretty good quality suspension sytem, preventing th egg from ever feeling the full force of the impact with the ground.

Works great if part of the challange is speed of drop. (Parachutes = Slower)

[R2K2D2]

This is one way that I have done this in the past. Take some long durable straws. Put rubber bands around your egg and then place the straws all around your egg and either tie them together or use rubberbands to constrain them. So basically, you will have this spikey ball (made from the straws jutting out in different directions, with the ball in the center. I have dropped this from a very high staircase and it worked perfectly. The straws will take all the impact and crumple, if needed, and the egg will be safe. The straws allow the structure to bounce and be impact resistant.

[c-squared_2006]

Well, please let us know how you did! :D

[Pat Roche]

Wrap lots of bubble wrap and duct tape on it....thats what they pack things with for shipping...must work..

-Pat

[Duke 13370]

When i did this i used a less dense padding around the egg, then a slightly more stiff layer then another layer, and so on for like 3 more layers. It fit in a box about the size you needed, after dropping it 30 feet easily, we played a quick game of football with it until someone drop kicked the box. it got messy then.

it might have been bigger. meh! whatever :rolleyes:

[Gabriel]

I had to do this once. I was thinking about designing a parachute and some airbags, but after thinking a long time I found the PERFECT mechanism. Here are the step-by-step instructions

1. Go to your school's mailroom and get a box for an empty ream of copier paper.
2. Go around to all the laser printers and collect as much standard 8 1/2 x 11 paper as you can. Reams of paper where the pages are attached work the best.
3. Put half a ream of paper in the bottom of the box. Put egg on top, put the other half ream on top of that.
4. If you have any extra room fill it with bricks. Your whole school building is probably made of bricks and chances are they can spare a few.
5. Obtain a sharpie or other permanent marker.
6. Using letters several inches high name your creation "THE PHOENIX"

[Aignam]

I know for a fact that there are archived threads about this exact topic. Do a search and see if you get any good ideas.

[Matt_Kaplan1902]

Thanks for all your suggestions. I used a slightly modified version of Greg Needel's idea.

If you were wondering my egg did survive and got 3rd place in my class. Thanks again for all your help.

[Ryan Dognaux]

I had to do this, and I just taped 2 sponges together... worked fine, but it was a bit too bouncy.

[pryoplasm]

I had to do this once. I was thinking about designing a parachute and some airbags, but after thinking a long time I found the PERFECT mechanism. Here are the step-by-step instructions

1. Go to your school's mailroom and get a box for an empty ream of copier paper.
2. Go around to all the laser printers and collect as much standard 8 1/2 x 11 paper as you can. Reams of paper where the pages are attached work the best.
3. Put half a ream of paper in the bottom of the box. Put egg on top, put the other half ream on top of that.
4. If you have any extra room fill it with bricks. Your whole school building is probably made of bricks and chances are they can spare a few.
5. Obtain a sharpie or other permanent marker.
6. Using letters several inches high name your creation "THE PHOENIX"


XD XD XD

[deltacoder1020]

lol @ Gabriel

it's more fun when you have to do a naked egg drop - that is, build a catcher instead of a container. catchers ranked by highest drop successfully caught first, height of the catcher itself second. (have a set number of drop heights so someone doesn't build a yard-tall catcher and simply out-drop everyone - a big emphasis here is on making a short catcher). I did this one year and caught an egg from eight meters with a 10cm tall catcher. that was fun ;)

[Dave Vivecian]

I thought naked egg drop was something you did off the diving board skinny dipping at night in the neighbors pool...
lol


the best "naked egg drop" though is when your only allowed paper, tape, and straws

We did this in about 5th grade and i made a box that sortof resembled this years goals, and put shreded paper filling the inside except on the inside of the pungie pit type thing
______
| . ' . |
|.egg.|
| ' . ' |
-------

then with paper on the outside of that ring and inside of the box
also tape rolls on the inside edge of the ring so when it fell in it wouldnt bounce out

then i used gabriel's method and it was kewl but i named mine "Back to Hates"


hehe




Dave

[deltacoder1020]

what height did you get from it?