Can anyone help us with an egg drop project?

[ceecee]

My daughter and I and engineer dad have spent the past four hours on the internet researching ideas. Her teacher decided it was too easy so she made rules: no packing whatsoever, no balloons, parachutes or ready mad containers including cardboard boxes. It has to be no more than 10 cm and weigh less than 65 grams and survive a 2 story drop. We are stumped! We came close with straws but it broke at 2 stories. Any help would be appreciated!

 

[pezheadmeg]

Loaf of wonder bread.

I haven't done it myself, but I know numerous people who swear it's the only way to get that egg to survive.

 

[java]

Tennis balls?

Cotton balls all around- then something to break the fall on the bottom.? I am not sure what.

hmm what if you freeze it? then drop it into water? or something along those lines.

I am not measuring here so I am guessing on sizes. and weights.

What does no packing mean? No cotton balls? bubble wrap?

What if you bake something dense- then put the egg inside? Like a pound cake?

 

[mrsbornkuntry]

I don't know if this will be much help, I had to do this *many* years ago in eighth grade and my egg survived. I suspended it inside a box using pantyhose. I know you said no box, but maybe there's something you can use with the pantyhose?

 

[ceecee]

She said no socks, but I think panty hose may fly! We can't use any type of cushioning...cotton, etc. No food items and she is going to put the egg in the day of the drop so it has to be easy to open and close. We tried pantyhose in a cut plastic 2 lt bottle, but it splatted!

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

It kind of spoils the fun by telling you what I did....


But I had a shoe box. I then took nylons (panty hose)--tied the egg in the middle of the box in one "leg" (when diagonal from one corner to the other.)

Then I took an empty leg and criss crossed it the other way but attaching it by tying it in the middle where the egg was before tying to the opposit corner

\ /
\ /
\ /
EGG
/ \
/ \
/ \

Drew a picture in case what i didn't say made sense.

I wasn't an engineer and had dopes for parents. This was in honors physics my senior year and the egg was dropped from the top of the stadium--3 stories high.

My egg survived the impact.

The notion was essentailly I had the shoe box absorbing all the shock and the goal was to have the egg not hit any sides.



Though I would encourage your daughter to design this herself and you simply have all these ideas in the back of your mind to help guide her.

 

[Colleen27]

I did something like the previous poster, but using hair bands and a dowel & foamboard structure, since we weren't allowed to use shoeboxes or any other premade containers.

 

[seashoreCM]

Try this. Suspend the egg in empty space within the container using rubber bands.

>>> physics honors project
Yes it is, if not a college level project.

At the college level you use math to predict in advance the size of the rubber bands (or other materials) you need to use.

Scientific packaging for such purposes as sending blown glass items from the Magic Kingdom store to your home would require similar techniques. Unfortunately a completely different mindset is needed to move in this direction compared with the current procedure of bedding down the item in crumpled tissue paper (standard; ordinary; normal, non-scientific packaging).

 

[Tink9295]

Ok. I work at a school. I've seen many egg drops and the one thing that always works is to place it into a roll of papertowels, the bigger the roll the better. Just stuff some papertowels in the ends so it doesn't fall out.

 

[Grace&Carolinesmom]

I was thinking maybe if you fashioned a container that looks something like a sea urchin..... with the "needles" or spokes absorbing the pressure of the drop. You need something between the needles and the hard shell surrounding the egg. Like putting the egg into a plastic egg surrounded by a hollowed out foam ball with tons of needles or spokes stuck all around the foam ball????

 

[ceecee]

I asked DD about a toilet paper roll with egg inside since paper towels are over the size limit, the TP is over by a little as well so we took half of it away and then tried the egg and it was too big!!! The teacher is using medium eggs. The list of do not use included a shoe box or any pre made boxes so that limits that!

 

[marlynnp]

I asked DD about a toilet paper roll with egg inside since paper towels are over the size limit, the TP is over by a little as well so we took half of it away and then tried the egg and it was too big!!! The teacher is using medium eggs. The list of do not use included a shoe box or any pre made boxes so that limits that!

The egg's too big for the center of the TP?
Remove the cardboard tube and whatever TP neccessary from the center of the roll - that will also cut down the weight. Use rubber bands to maintain the shape of the roll of TP.

 

[runwad]

My DD11 class just did this last year. Kids tried putting them in jars of peanut butter some made it some didn't. Some put them in the middle of toilet paper rolls and wrapped the ends somehow?, those made it, a kid somehow had a bouncy rubber ball that he cut in half and made a space for the egg inside then somehow put it back together and it survived the fall...he was also able to get the ball apart to take out the egg, not sure how he did it. Another even put it inside a teddy bear and surprisingly that one survived too. Those are all I can remember off the top of my head. I want to try to remember the toilet paper one for my DS9 when he gets to the intermediate school.

 

[LoveTheWDWMagic]

My son had to drop his from roof of a 4 story building and survived. He used two wire hangers and another wire hanger to make a "box" kite. He used newspapers to wrap around the perimeter of the kite. Using fishing lines, we suspended a small plastic container in the middle of the kite. Make sure you glue cotton balls inside the plastic container to keep the egg in place. Hope you understand.

 

[Mrs. Charming]

I had to do this my junior year of high school for my art class. (I know, Art? but whatever) and we had to do this using only toothpicks and glue. They all broke but one. We did have to drop them off of a fire escape 2+ stories high, though. The boy whose egg did not break built a gigantic geodesic sphere around it, it was really a sight. I think it was probably 18" in diameter! it was almost like a sphere around the egg, a sphere around that, a sphere around that, until the thing was basically a monster. HTH in some way!!

Mine did work, but only from 10' at home, which probably weakened the darn thing, and then it broke in class. Stupid me. I built a structure using triangles/pyraminds. It was pretty cool!

Good Luck!

 

[aka-mad4themouse]

Moving to the Community Board.

I'm no help. My egg didn't survive the drop.

 

[zachnsamsmommy]

My son's egg survived the drop last spring, and we had a lot of rules as well..

We went to a foam outlet (that makes memory foam and other foam products), and got a 12 in square of foam. We cut the foam in half, and made a cradle for the egg. (egg had to be in a sandwich baggie to prevent a mess if it broke). We then used extra large rubber bands (bought at Office Max) to hold the two pieces of foam together. It survived a two story drop.


Good luck!

 

[hrh_disney_queen]

Here are a couple of things that I saw work at our egg drop a couple of years ago:

Rubber bands stretched inside the box in such a way that the egg is held in between them. (I saw this, it worked, but I am not sure exactly how they did it.)

Inside a plastic jar of peanut butter..yep, this worked.

A parachute attached to the outside of the box. This was DS11's idea. He also had plenty of padding inside, but may not have needed it if his parachute worked a little better.

This is a fun project, good luck to your DD!

 

[Uuaww]

I remember when I was a kid I put it inside a nerf football, it worked.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Already quoted--but clearing it anyway and yes..I have egg on my face!

doh!