Thread: egg drop using limited materials

I'm a freshman in high school and we are doing an egg drop, but we have a very limited materials list.

Materials:
Tape, glue, paper, plastic food wrap, plastic baggies, string, wood, aluminum foil, pipe cleaners, standard metal paper clips, garbage bag twist ties

Guide lines:
the egg can not be built into the structure
can not be over 30cm cubed
must be a standard chicken egg not wrapped or coated with anything
the egg must be visible from all directions (open structure)
no wings/parachutes

I have a rough idea of making a ball out of balsa wood triangles and suspending the egg in the center with string and tape. I also thought that by using 3 baggies one inside the other with the egg inside one of them, that it would provide deceleration on impact. (hopefully saving my egg, a broken egg is a failing grade)

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you,
punkymonkey

Try inflating a baggie at the bottom aswell with a small hole in it. This would allow for deceleration without overturning your device as the baggie should deflate quickly enough.

Â*
I would chuck all the supplies except for the pipe cleaners. Use a hundred or so pipe cleaners to build a large cage.

Good luck.

Â*

Originally Posted by punkymonkey

I'm a freshman in high school and we are doing an egg drop, but we have a very limited materials list.

Materials:
Tape, glue, paper, plastic food wrap, plastic baggies, string, wood, aluminum foil, pipe cleaners, standard metal paper clips, garbage bag twist ties

Guide lines:
the egg can not be built into the structure
can not be over 30cm cubed
must be a standard chicken egg not wrapped or coated with anything
the egg must be visible from all directions (open structure)
no wings/parachutes

I have a rough idea of making a ball out of balsa wood triangles and suspending the egg in the center with string and tape. I also thought that by using 3 baggies one inside the other with the egg inside one of them, that it would provide deceleration on impact. (hopefully saving my egg, a broken egg is a failing grade)

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you,
punkymonkey

I would cut and glue out of paper. Little cones, about one inch long with a half inch base. And then glue them to the egg. I would leave little tabs around the base of the cone to attach to the egg.

The cones should compress, but by then they will have slowed down the egg, enough not to break. And it should look like one mean egg.

If that is the idea of the egg drop? Or would that be considered building the egg inside the structure?

Volume of a cone is 1/3 * pi * Radius^2 * Height. A one by two centimeter cone has a volume of 0.52359833 cubic centimeters.

You could also glue/silicone adhesive, cone shaped springs made out of paper clips onto the egg as well. If that does not break the rules?

How far does the egg have to fall?

You could also use those three bags, like you were going to do, and just glue in crushable paper objects, geometrically between each bag and between the egg and first bag. So that you could still see your egg.

Balls of very lightly crumpled aluminum foil glued on the outside of the egg would probably give a one shot landing as well.





Sincerely,


William McCormick

As I remember this, the winner (of those whose eggs didn't crack) is the one that hits the pavement first. They timed the drops. So you may want a very streamlined vehicle.

My team had the egg in a tube. We used air compression to break the egg's fall. Then we taped a padlock to the tube bottom, so the vehicle wouldn't bounce much after impact.

But apparently your egg must be visible from all directions? ???

Use a see through tube

Originally Posted by William McCormick

Originally Posted by punkymonkey

I'm a freshman in high school and we are doing an egg drop, but we have a very limited materials list.

Materials:
Tape, glue, paper, plastic food wrap, plastic baggies, string, wood, aluminum foil, pipe cleaners, standard metal paper clips, garbage bag twist ties

Guide lines:
the egg can not be built into the structure
can not be over 30cm cubed
must be a standard chicken egg not wrapped or coated with anything
the egg must be visible from all directions (open structure)
no wings/parachutes

I have a rough idea of making a ball out of balsa wood triangles and suspending the egg in the center with string and tape. I also thought that by using 3 baggies one inside the other with the egg inside one of them, that it would provide deceleration on impact. (hopefully saving my egg, a broken egg is a failing grade)

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you,
punkymonkey

I would cut and glue out of paper. Little cones, about one inch long with a half inch base. And then glue them to the egg. I would leave little tabs around the base of the cone to attach to the egg.

The cones should compress, but by then they will have slowed down the egg, enough not to break. And it should look like one mean egg.

If that is the idea of the egg drop? Or would that be considered building the egg inside the structure?

Volume of a cone is 1/3 * pi * Radius^2 * Height. A one by two centimeter cone has a volume of 0.52359833 cubic centimeters.

You could also glue/silicone adhesive, cone shaped springs made out of paper clips onto the egg as well. If that does not break the rules?

How far does the egg have to fall?

You could also use those three bags, like you were going to do, and just glue in crushable paper objects, geometrically between each bag and between the egg and first bag. So that you could still see your egg.

Balls of very lightly crumpled aluminum foil glued on the outside of the egg would probably give a one shot landing as well.





Sincerely,


William McCormick

We are not allowed to attach any kind of material that we use directly to the egg... I also found out today that I'm not allowed to use the 3 baggies on inside the other. (she said that it must be seen and it still is but she told me that it acted like an air bag... even if i pressed all of the air out of the baggies) The egg must survie a 16ft fall. a fracture will result in a zero for the project.. (its a BIG part of my science grade) I figured that the baggies with no air in them would not act like an air bag.... just that it would help slow down the egg...

I want to throw an idea out there it sounds kind of crazy, but what if inside of the ball made out of balsa wood triangles, if i could somehow take and hang the egg in the middle of the structure and have a paper cone underneath it to catch the egg if it dropped out of the baggy would that help it in deceleration? Also i was thinking about weighing down the bottom of the structure so it doesn't over turn.

thank you all so much for your help, it is greatly appreciated!
PunkyMonkey

"Visible from all directions (open structure)", and "can not be built into the structure" are poorly defined conditions. I guess that first condition means no more than roughly half the egg can be cupped or otherwise obscured by any form of hammock or restraint . It's pretty hard to mount an egg to a vehicle without making part of it invisible. The other condition, I guess means the egg may be easily mounted, by your teacher.

It is pretty easy to build a vehicle to cushion simple drop - the challenge is where that rebounds and flips over on its side after initial impact. Fail. So a lot of these are inelegant bouncy balls/cages. Which is overkill, bad engineering, unimaginative in my humble opinion.

I think your balsa wood cage safe enough. Popsicle sticks or the like will be easy to build with, maybe just soda straws. Use string, lots of string, to tension that together and also hammock the egg.

30cm cube max? There is a nasty way to do this. Get yourself a load of egg cartons, yeah 30cm cube of them glued together, with the egg in top seat. And fill the bottom cartons with sacrificial eggs. Splat. Ask your teacher if the egg may rest in an open egg carton - that'll illuminate her conditions somewhat and maybe you could build something less bombastic out of egg cartons.

If you can drop onto soil (not pavement) then something like a lawn dart might do well.

Originally Posted by Pong

"Visible from all directions (open structure)", and "can not be built into the structure" are poorly defined conditions. I guess that first condition means no more than roughly half the egg can be cupped or otherwise obscured by any form of hammock or restraint . It's pretty hard to mount an egg to a vehicle without making part of it invisible. The other condition, I guess means the egg may be easily mounted, by your teacher.

It is pretty easy to build a vehicle to cushion simple drop - the challenge is where that rebounds and flips over on its side after initial impact. Fail. So a lot of these are inelegant bouncy balls/cages. Which is overkill, bad engineering, unimaginative in my humble opinion.

I think your balsa wood cage safe enough. Popsicle sticks or the like will be easy to build with, maybe just soda straws. Use string, lots of string, to tension that together and also hammock the egg.

30cm cube max? There is a nasty way to do this. Get yourself a load of egg cartons, yeah 30cm cube of them glued together, with the egg in top seat. And fill the bottom cartons with sacrificial eggs. Splat. Ask your teacher if the egg may rest in an open egg carton - that'll illuminate her conditions somewhat and maybe you could build something less bombastic out of egg cartons.

If you can drop onto soil (not pavement) then something like a lawn dart might do well.

well my teacher has given us a set of instructions, and it seems as though she is changing all of the rules as the project progresses... she is very arrogant and thinks that she knows everything! but in reality... she doesn't... I've looked the project we are doing up online and places like MIT and such had more materials and more time.. i mean im not complaining... I'm just saying its kind of hard to get this all done in a 5 day span with the materials i have to use...

The visibility thing... well i guess we could create a hammock for it like out of string... she has some from past years that worked that had a brace made to fit the egg inside... but they also were allowed to use more materials then we are.

when I'm all done making the project, i can post a pic on here to show you all the final product... if you want to see it...

well thank you sooo much for your time,
it is very much appreciated.
PunkyMonkey

Please do post the pics. :-D

Good luck!

Originally Posted by punkymonkey

Originally Posted by Pong

"Visible from all directions (open structure)", and "can not be built into the structure" are poorly defined conditions. I guess that first condition means no more than roughly half the egg can be cupped or otherwise obscured by any form of hammock or restraint . It's pretty hard to mount an egg to a vehicle without making part of it invisible. The other condition, I guess means the egg may be easily mounted, by your teacher.

It is pretty easy to build a vehicle to cushion simple drop - the challenge is where that rebounds and flips over on its side after initial impact. Fail. So a lot of these are inelegant bouncy balls/cages. Which is overkill, bad engineering, unimaginative in my humble opinion.

I think your balsa wood cage safe enough. Popsicle sticks or the like will be easy to build with, maybe just soda straws. Use string, lots of string, to tension that together and also hammock the egg.

30cm cube max? There is a nasty way to do this. Get yourself a load of egg cartons, yeah 30cm cube of them glued together, with the egg in top seat. And fill the bottom cartons with sacrificial eggs. Splat. Ask your teacher if the egg may rest in an open egg carton - that'll illuminate her conditions somewhat and maybe you could build something less bombastic out of egg cartons.

If you can drop onto soil (not pavement) then something like a lawn dart might do well.

well my teacher has given us a set of instructions, and it seems as though she is changing all of the rules as the project progresses... she is very arrogant and thinks that she knows everything! but in reality... she doesn't... I've looked the project we are doing up online and places like MIT and such had more materials and more time.. i mean im not complaining... I'm just saying its kind of hard to get this all done in a 5 day span with the materials i have to use...

The visibility thing... well i guess we could create a hammock for it like out of string... she has some from past years that worked that had a brace made to fit the egg inside... but they also were allowed to use more materials then we are.

when I'm all done making the project, i can post a pic on here to show you all the final product... if you want to see it...

well thank you sooo much for your time,
it is very much appreciated.
PunkyMonkey

If she is really arrogant. Eat some paper. Drop your draws and take a crap, out on the test site. Then drop the egg into it. Ha-ha.

Or if you do not come up with a good idea by then, threaten to do this. Maybe she will pass you anyway. Ha-ha.

Can you weave a net out of string. If so you could cut rings of thin balsa wood. Like the rings of Saturn. And then tie the first two large rings, at 90 degree angles to one another. Then the next smaller ring at a 45 degree angle to the first two, and then the last smallest ring at a forty five degree angle, ninety degrees to the third ring. Then hang your netted egg inside.

You could also make a paper mache sphere, cut lightning holes into it, so you can look in from any angle. One hole large enough to get the egg in. Then just suspend the egg inside the sphere with a net.

You can blow up a balloon and put the newspaper and pancake mix onto the balloon.

The formula for the area of a sphere is pi times diameter squared. You could make a pretty big sphere if you keep the paper mache to 1/8" thick.


Sincerely,


William McCormick

Originally Posted by punkymonkey

We are not allowed to attach any kind of material that we use directly to the egg... I also found out today that I'm not allowed to use the 3 baggies on inside the other. (she said that it must be seen and it still is but she told me that it acted like an air bag... even if i pressed all of the air out of the baggies) The egg must survie a 16ft fall. a fracture will result in a zero for the project.. (its a BIG part of my science grade) I figured that the baggies with no air in them would not act like an air bag.... just that it would help slow down the egg...

I want to throw an idea out there it sounds kind of crazy, but what if inside of the ball made out of balsa wood triangles, if i could somehow take and hang the egg in the middle of the structure and have a paper cone underneath it to catch the egg if it dropped out of the baggy would that help it in deceleration? Also i was thinking about weighing down the bottom of the structure so it doesn't over turn.

thank you all so much for your help, it is greatly appreciated!
PunkyMonkey

Could you tape a small blown up plastic bag onto the proposed bottom of the egg, and use the pipe cleaners as antlers, or more like the tail of kite? Or fins on a rocket?
If you attached them to the proposed top of the egg. By wrapping them like a basket around the egg. They would cause the egg to fall with the bag leading the way to the ground. And if you spread out the pipe cleaners, they would keep the egg from falling over and breaking, once it was on the ground.




The pipe cleaners would actually be a form of parachute.
Some very small drag chutes for larger parachutes will actually save your life, because they work so well. They are only about five feet across totally opened up. Closed or pulled taunt for use, they are only about three feet across.

The secret to their amazing stopping power is a net in the top of the chute that allows air to pass through. And does not allow a bubble of turbulent air to form under the parachute. This forces the air to be strained through the chute. Very effective. You could fold it up and put it into a large inside jacket pocket.

I would think nothing of jumping off a high building with one of these, as long as there were no down drafts (cold fronts).

Sincerely,


William McCormick

HA! I had five minutes to do that! We could only use 6 sheets of computer paper and a foot of packing tape. Besides that, there were no restrictions.

I heavily believe in Thoreau's idea of 'as simple as possible, but not simpler'.
Most of the kids built parachutes and complex contraptions, all of which failed at least to some extent. Mine, was very simple and landed perfectly
; in fact it could have held an egg 2x heavier with a 2x weaker shell.

It was dropped from around 11-12 feet.

While all other parachutes failed, my design used a platform parachute, where the actual platform and cushion that the egg was resting on caught large amounts of air. This allowed for the cushioning to perform more than one task at once, and it created a tremendous amount of air resistance with a very low terminal velocity.

Originally Posted by William McCormick

Originally Posted by punkymonkey

Originally Posted by Pong

"Visible from all directions (open structure)", and "can not be built into the structure" are poorly defined conditions. I guess that first condition means no more than roughly half the egg can be cupped or otherwise obscured by any form of hammock or restraint . It's pretty hard to mount an egg to a vehicle without making part of it invisible. The other condition, I guess means the egg may be easily mounted, by your teacher.

It is pretty easy to build a vehicle to cushion simple drop - the challenge is where that rebounds and flips over on its side after initial impact. Fail. So a lot of these are inelegant bouncy balls/cages. Which is overkill, bad engineering, unimaginative in my humble opinion.

I think your balsa wood cage safe enough. Popsicle sticks or the like will be easy to build with, maybe just soda straws. Use string, lots of string, to tension that together and also hammock the egg.

30cm cube max? There is a nasty way to do this. Get yourself a load of egg cartons, yeah 30cm cube of them glued together, with the egg in top seat. And fill the bottom cartons with sacrificial eggs. Splat. Ask your teacher if the egg may rest in an open egg carton - that'll illuminate her conditions somewhat and maybe you could build something less bombastic out of egg cartons.

If you can drop onto soil (not pavement) then something like a lawn dart might do well.

well my teacher has given us a set of instructions, and it seems as though she is changing all of the rules as the project progresses... she is very arrogant and thinks that she knows everything! but in reality... she doesn't... I've looked the project we are doing up online and places like MIT and such had more materials and more time.. i mean im not complaining... I'm just saying its kind of hard to get this all done in a 5 day span with the materials i have to use...

The visibility thing... well i guess we could create a hammock for it like out of string... she has some from past years that worked that had a brace made to fit the egg inside... but they also were allowed to use more materials then we are.

when I'm all done making the project, i can post a pic on here to show you all the final product... if you want to see it...

well thank you sooo much for your time,
it is very much appreciated.
PunkyMonkey

If she is really arrogant. Eat some paper. Drop your draws and take a crap, out on the test site. Then drop the egg into it. Ha-ha.

Or if you do not come up with a good idea by then, threaten to do this. Maybe she will pass you anyway. Ha-ha.

Can you weave a net out of string. If so you could cut rings of thin balsa wood. Like the rings of Saturn. And then tie the first two large rings, at 90 degree angles to one another. Then the next smaller ring at a 45 degree angle to the first two, and then the last smallest ring at a forty five degree angle, ninety degrees to the third ring. Then hang your netted egg inside.

You could also make a paper mache sphere, cut lightning holes into it, so you can look in from any angle. One hole large enough to get the egg in. Then just suspend the egg inside the sphere with a net.

You can blow up a balloon and put the newspaper and pancake mix onto the balloon.

The formula for the area of a sphere is pi times diameter squared. You could make a pretty big sphere if you keep the paper mache to 1/8" thick.


Sincerely,


William McCormick

the paper mache is a good idea... she said that we could use paper and glue... so i dont see how that would be breaking the rules... well thank you for your GREAT ideas and such, i think that i might use the pipe cleaners as a parachute like you said......

i was thinking of using the plastic wrap and wrapping it around the top half of the structure to creat resistance, causing it to slow down and not smash into the ground as fast.

thank you so much for all your help!
punkymonkey

Stupid offtopic - how long will it take an average egg to hit to terminal velocity? Then, what if you used Will's latest theory?

Maybe if you tried a bungee cord....

well i would like to use a lot of things... but unfortunately, they are prohibited...

i was thinking about what will said last night and about the pipe cleaners.. as like a parachute and i think thats a great idea.. so im thinking that i am going to try that... but i can blow up a baggie at the bottom, because she doesn't want us to have an "air bag' system.

i was wondering, would the shape of the wood... round or flat, change how quickly it falls?

Originally Posted by punkymonkey

well i would like to use a lot of things... but unfortunately, they are prohibited...

i was thinking about what will said last night and about the pipe cleaners.. as like a parachute and i think thats a great idea.. so im thinking that i am going to try that... but i can blow up a baggie at the bottom, because she doesn't want us to have an "air bag' system.

i was wondering, would the shape of the wood... round or flat, change how quickly it falls?

How about a ball of very loosely crumple aluminum foil instead of the air bag?

I used to hate these projects. The rules are either leading somewhere so silly, or the rules are meaningless.


One year I had a project to do. It was a Rube Goldberg project. So I made a mercury switch controlled mouse trap, with a giant carbide grinder, inside the trap once sprung that would grind up the mouse.

I made a second one, a cigarette lighter with a steel ball bearing that rolled around on two brass rails. The ball made electrical contact and started a motor that wound a string around the shaft of the motor, and pulled a match that was taped onto the string, out of a double folded match book cover. The match was pulled into a holder and you could light your cigarette.

The teacher thought it would be wise to pass me after that.

I had been thrown out of another social studies class, before I got this teacher and this Rube Goldberg assignment.
I was at the guidance councilors office. The guidance councilor said Bill do not screw this up or I will kill you. So I walk into Mr. Johnson's classroom. Mr. Johnson was actually a pretty cool guy. He weighed about 300 pounds. But was pretty agile. He had been hurt in a chain saw accident, his arm had a huge scar on it.

The only chair left in class is right up in front of the classroom. My good friend Vincent Crapie was right behind me. He just put his head down in laughter.

I sit down and Mr. Johnson sits down right in front me. He says "can anyone tell me what inflation is" So I pointed at his stomach. He got up quick and mad, and said "Alright McCormick, DISAPLINE CARD!" And off I went to the Guidance councilor.

I get back to the guidance office and take a chair. Mr. Yanellie comes out and says, "What are you doing here, I told you to go to the new class" I said "I did but I just got thrown out". Mr. Yanellie said "GET BACK THERE RIGHT NOW! I don't care what you have to do, just do not come back".



Sincerely,


William McCormick

hey all well i just wanted to let you all know that im going to work and my project this weekend, and i will let you know if i have any complications with it Thank you Will for your funny story! Made my day!

I'm not so good with teachers either i normally back talk them and such... but since high school, i learned that it wasn't such a good idea (they'll send you to the office you know..)

well thank you all will give you updates soon!

First of all i would like to say thank you to all who have helped me..... my egg project lived on the final test. When i tryed it out at home (pre-test) it fell out and shattered

these pictures are of the building process and of the structure before the egg cracked

http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...2/100_0931.jpg

http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...2/100_0932.jpg

http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m.../100_0933.jpg]

http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...2/100_0934.jpg

this next one is of the first test i did at home if you look it has plastic wrap over the top half of the structure, but i ended up ditching the plastic wrap.... because it did fine without it!

http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...2/100_0935.jpg

ok so the next two are the ones from after the final touches and after it survived the test at school if you look close, i dont know if you can see it but the cone that held the egg actually crunched on the impact.... like you all said it would!

http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...2/100_0936.jpg

http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...2/100_0940.jpg

well thank you all for sticking with me and i hope you enjoy the pictures!!

thank you,
punkymonkey/Judyann

http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/m...2/100_0933.jpg

third link didnt work sorry...

Originally Posted by punkymonkey

third link didnt work sorry...

Thanks for the pictures. I love pictures.

Glad you got through that. A sincere congratulations. Good work.

Now that it is over you are probably ok with the teacher. But when you have to do those things, it just down right stinks.

Hands on is great. However I doubt that the teacher knows why hands on is great. Heck now you could deliver a small atomic device intact.

Next time remind her of this ahead of time. She will probably excuse you or just dump the project. Ha-ha.

In the second grade I made a shoe box collage of a World War One battle field. Complete with soldiers, phosgene gas, mines you name it. She got dizzy looking at it, turned white and left me alone, pretty much after that. I didn't even have to do homework.
My pop already showed me how to make phosgene gas at home. It would rust steel on contact.

On parent night she herded all the parents over to look at it. Just to see their reaction. Some parents said "Oh my God"! And she kind of ran over and said "Yes isn't that strange"?

Other kids had cotton flowers. Or clay boats.

One year a kid brought in a pool and did a perpetual wave generation system in class. It was pretty cool. It kept going until the waves got so big it destroyed the rhythm in the pool. And messed up the generators.

Sincerely,


William McCormick