Experiment
A brain teaser for you. My son has a science task to do. Drop an egg from 3 metres without it breaking.
Restrictions - 1) at least 50% of the egg must be visible
2) no normal/pre-made packaging material to be used
3) the orientation of the drop is at the teachers discretion
Most of the kids will be using a parachute which shows little imagination. I'm trying to get my kid to think along other lines.
We discussed the strength axis of eggs , momentum , energy transfer etc & he came up with -
Attempt one - a PET popper bottle cut down , egg inside , taped back together, filled with water & popper top left open for pressure relief. Worked great unless bottle was dropped side on.
Attempt two - Four cardboard toilet paper tubes cut out to encase the egg. One on each end & one on each side. The four tubes are then taped together encapsulating the egg. Didn't work when dropped side on.
Plan B will be to use the parachute method but using inflated balloons instead of the parachute. This will at least show he has attempted to think outside the square but he is still trying to come up with something more imaginitive,
Any ideas to explore & work on would be appreciated.
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have done this as well, use straws, make a tetrahedron or some 3D shape with strength such as hexagons. You can either suspend the egg wihin the structure so it is free floating so to speak or atach directly to structure with more straws. this will work and you can see all the egg, when we did a similar experiment we managed a drop from 4 stories high
Ozchips is correct, done this experiment as well and it works perfect using straws.
Didn't see in the rules the egg couldn't be cooked (fried would work very well)
Now that's thinking outside the shell.Originally Posted by MrRadio
Don't mention anything about having to drop it on the ground either.
Drop it in a vessel of water?
Assuming the rule of not breaking the egg, means the shell... hard boiling would be a better option.
The rule of a 3 metre drop doesn't specify what it's dropped onto or into.
Into a person's hands would be ideal..... or a pile/box of shredded paper.
Already thought of all that but the "device" has to be dropped with the egg which is supplied on the day. Attempt four was putting the egg between two partialy inflated cliplock bags but the seams of the bag split. However for those who need to do this experiment we have a solution. Four sheets of newspaper rolled into a cone. The cone is rolled so the egg sits about 6" from the pointy end. Adjustments can be made by changing the cone shape or number of sheets of paper used. Worked perfectly first time. Hopefully will work perfectly the second time cause the chooks are off the lay & we have run out of eggs.
Thanks for all the suggestions
You could be really creative and create a magnetic shock absorption system.
Place the egg in an empty toilet roll, tape a magnet to the bottom of the roll. Find a suitable diameter 3m length of conduit (pvc pipe) and place another magnet on the bottom.
Drop the egg in toilet roll into conduit and if the magnet is strong enough it will absorb the shock, kind of like the tower drop ride they use to have at Sydney Wonderland.
Make a pin prick on top and bottom of the shell.
Blow out all the contents by applying air pressure by mouth over one of the holes.
Plug one hole and try filling the shell with helium before plugging the second hole.
Or alternatively fill the empty shell with expanding foam.
You could always drop a chicken from 3m and argue which came first later.
Or...
Stuff the egg they give you back into the chicken and drop said chicken from 3m. (They are anatomically designed to protect the egg)
Last edited by intelliGEORGE; 26-07-12 at 11:53 PM.
Build a large cardboard rocket out of a 6 inch tube with a pointed heavy tip to make sure it falls point first.
Put egg in the middle of a stocking, hold it in the middle with 2 rubber bands, tie each end of the stocking across the rocket tube.
The stocking should absorb all the impact while the rocket hits the ground point first, the egg will be visible through the stocking.
We did this in high school, and in my first year of uni.
The uni one was harder, as it had weight restrictions (had to be under 500g).
Like this one, it could be dropped from any angle, at the lecturer's discretion.
I built a "cage" out of balsa wood. Roughly the size of a soccer ball, using pentagonal shapes. I 'doped' the ends of the balsa sticks in cyano glue, and this allowed me to have the 'joints' glud together with silicone. Like Godzilla mentioned, I suspended the egg in one of those short stockings - forming a pocket to slip the egg into, that tied off with a rubber band. I had it tethered from multiple angles by strips of stocking glued to the main pocket via hot-melt glue. It survived a 5m drop nicely. The survivors were able to contest for outright honours at greater heights. I came 2nd to a parachute design with a padded basket attached. It failed at something like 8m from memory.
weirdo (29-07-12)
if it only has to survive a 3 metre drop, then drop it from 5 metres and it has survived the first 3 metres......
Last edited by stenkir; 29-07-12 at 11:18 PM.
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