Egg drop help Please..:-)

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Posted by Rick Gibbs.

Engineer on team #145, T-Rx, from Norwich High School, Sherburne-Earlville High School and Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals.

Posted on 4/18/2000 8:45 PM MST


In Reply to: Egg drop help Please..:-) posted by Travis Covington on 4/13/2000 8:35 PM MST:



IF YOU'RE DROPPING THE EGG ONTO A HARD SURFACE (concrete, etc.), then think of the problem a different way. What materials already exists that are lightweight and prevent things from breaking? Answer: almost any type of packing material - bubble wrap, packing peanuts, crumpled newspaper, air bags, etc. That material has to be lightweight to reduce cost and (most of the time) still protects the package contents. Make a package with another lightweight material (seran wrap, other ideas?) that contains your egg and packing material. Should work.

IF YOU'RE DROPPING THE EGG ONTO A SOFTER SURFACE (lawn, etc.) then you don't have to use anything, a zero gram solution. It is possible to consistently throw a raw egg over a house without it breaking. I've recently demonstrated this to one of our FIRST seniors, throwing it ~50' high and 50' of distance (over my house). The trick is, when you throw it you have to put a lot of end over end spin on it. Why does it work? I don't know, but here's my educated guess (that's what engineers do well - make educated guesses). Since the center of gravity of the egg is closer to the round end of the egg, and if the egg is spinning fast enough, then the 'pointed' end (the strongest end) of the egg will hit the ground first. There's more to it than that, but maybe this will spawn some hypothesizing.

Good luck.