Egg Drop Ideas?
- Thread starter Juven Ignus
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Which is why you should use cornstarch and water. It would also be impressive if she could explain about non Newtonian liquids.Juven Ignus said:
But it is still safer to go with the one, which isn't a potential explosive, not that it wouldn't be awesomeEntropicBliss said:
I remember doing that same project in school. The best design by far was a foam football [http://www.flaghouse.com/prod_images/P14219.jpg] with a slit on the side (to insert the egg) and the middle hollowed out to make room for the egg.
That thing could be thrown pretty much any distance and the egg still survived.
That thing could be thrown pretty much any distance and the egg still survived.
10 feet? That's nothing, we dropped ours off the top of the school, which was 40 feet. Then again where their was no container, only a bottom device at 15 feet 3 years later. I won both drops.
My container for the first one was an old butter container, filled with cotton balls and a set of three parachutes ontop. It did cartwheels until it landed, but the egg was nice and sound.
The second one I built it with the same idea in mind of a car's impact system. I made a multi-tiered box that as the egg fell, each subsequent tier cradled it and acted as an increasingly more powerful cushion, so when it finally reached the bottom, the egg was going as slow as you would to pluck it out of the carton.
My container for the first one was an old butter container, filled with cotton balls and a set of three parachutes ontop. It did cartwheels until it landed, but the egg was nice and sound.
The second one I built it with the same idea in mind of a car's impact system. I made a multi-tiered box that as the egg fell, each subsequent tier cradled it and acted as an increasingly more powerful cushion, so when it finally reached the bottom, the egg was going as slow as you would to pluck it out of the carton.
Yes.Marine Mike said:
What's your point?
(noteabovesentencewassarcasm)
The non-newtonian fluid is probably the best idea.
Causing a container to tumble while it is falling is very useful. It converts the impact into rotational energy which is not harmful to the egg.
As for packing material, have you ever seen those microbead pillows? Cut one of those open and use those beads to pack the egg. Should give the right amount of support and cushion.
As for packing material, have you ever seen those microbead pillows? Cut one of those open and use those beads to pack the egg. Should give the right amount of support and cushion.
I would say a cardboard box filled with 'peanuts', y'know these styrofoam-thingies... or maybe something else, like a bag...
Use peanuts in any case.
Use peanuts in any case.
this is what a friend of mine did:
make a container in the shape of an egg.
fill the big egg with packing peanuts(painted yellow).
place the egg inside
put a small weight at the top so it falls with the top of the egg facing down
when it lands, it cracks open and the peanuts come out looking like the pilled egg, while the egg remains fine
(basically what he summarized to me)
make a container in the shape of an egg.
fill the big egg with packing peanuts(painted yellow).
place the egg inside
put a small weight at the top so it falls with the top of the egg facing down
when it lands, it cracks open and the peanuts come out looking like the pilled egg, while the egg remains fine
(basically what he summarized to me)
If you get 6 balloons and a box, and maybe some super-glue duct-tape stuff. You can put the egg in the first balloon, then cut a hole in the side of the second balloon (along one of the six sides (top bottome and four sides)), then put the first balloon into it and pull the end of the first balloon through the hole so you have a super-balloon with twoo ends. Do the same for the third balloon, but cut two holes, and pull the ends through a hole each. Rinse and repeat until you have a balloon with 6 ends that you can put through holes cut into the box (small holes) and glue/nail/ducttape them to it. This way, it had the 'bouncy' thing to stop it undertaking massive amounts of force all at once, but it also won't bounce into the walls of the box because the other balloons would hold it in place.
Anyways, this is just me getting creative, as it would probably survive without the need for parachute-style slowing.
Anyways, this is just me getting creative, as it would probably survive without the need for parachute-style slowing.
I remember doing this but with MUCH tighter rules. You were given
1 a4 sheet of paper
6 drinking straws
1 meter of sticky tape
1 egg.
The trick was to make a cone using the paper and straws but with a small hole in the bottom. You then put the egg in there so it's tip is pointing out. Drop.
The game was a way of explaining how force distributes, a chicken egg is shaped so that when the chicken lays it it can drop on to the tip without breaking. The trick is building something that ENSURES that it will land directly on the tip.
I used the word tip a record breaking number of times there I think
1 a4 sheet of paper
6 drinking straws
1 meter of sticky tape
1 egg.
The trick was to make a cone using the paper and straws but with a small hole in the bottom. You then put the egg in there so it's tip is pointing out. Drop.
The game was a way of explaining how force distributes, a chicken egg is shaped so that when the chicken lays it it can drop on to the tip without breaking. The trick is building something that ENSURES that it will land directly on the tip.
I used the word tip a record breaking number of times there I think
That just reminds me for some reason of an advanced class I took in Elementary where one of the kids stood an egg on it's smaller tip explaining it has to do with the position of the moon and a very steady hand. I came in the next day and did it by applying enough pressure to slightly crack it and make a flat surface. They didn't know that part and I got away with looking far more skilled than I actually was.newuseforvintage said:I remember doing this but with MUCH tighter rules. You were given
1 a4 sheet of paper
6 drinking straws
1 meter of sticky tape
1 egg.
The trick was to make a cone using the paper and straws but with a small hole in the bottom. You then put the egg in there so it's tip is pointing out. Drop.
The game was a way of explaining how force distributes, a chicken egg is shaped so that when the chicken lays it it can drop on to the tip without breaking. The trick is building something that ENSURES that it will land directly on the tip.
I used the word tip a record breaking number of times there I think
Oooooooooh... Egg Drop!! We used to get the kids at work to do these of an evening. Have to say, the parachute designs didn't tend to work so well, especially over such a little height...
One that DID usually work was when the egg was packed fairly loosely in a container, with loads of shock-absorbing materials. Get a box/bag that matches the diameter, and a load of balloons/latex gloves/similar. Inflate the balloons or gloves, and pack the box with them, with the egg tucked away in the middle. Simple, yet effective. Also, you can get your sister to decorate the outside of the box in a suitably awesome manner!!
One that DID usually work was when the egg was packed fairly loosely in a container, with loads of shock-absorbing materials. Get a box/bag that matches the diameter, and a load of balloons/latex gloves/similar. Inflate the balloons or gloves, and pack the box with them, with the egg tucked away in the middle. Simple, yet effective. Also, you can get your sister to decorate the outside of the box in a suitably awesome manner!!
I tried this general design once, but the restrictions were a lot more dire: only toothpicks and glue allowed. Without a weight to orient the "lander" though, the meshed toothpick shock-absorbers didn't have the chance to absorb the blow, and it simply landed on its side, leading to cracked-egg syndrome of course. Weaker side shock absorbers couldn't handle the full load.EntropicBliss said:
Actually, nobody's design succeeded. Toothpicks are terrible shock absorbers, and there's no way to properly orient such a structure without weights or MASSIVE quantities of toothpicks.
More OT: Essentially anything soft is your friend. Fluffy things which contain lots of air, such as popcorn, packing peanuts and bubble wrap as mentioned above are your friends, but keep in mind you may need a lot of it.
The goal is to decrease the amount of acceleration the egg experiences when it hits the ground, and that means soft. A pringles can or other similar edged device to contain the egg on its fluffy pillow of material is also a good idea, because the force of impact will by translated into the cardboard edges. Failure to weight properly will mean disaster.
Keep in mind as well that the structurally strongest part of the egg is the pointy bit, so you'll want to have that facing down in your final design.
I'd go for the car suspension idea combined with fins and a parachute(not the type with a hard to make dome, more of just lots of hanging bits for lots of drag).