Egg Drop Challenge

Activity Overview

Continued practice with designing, engineering, making predictions, and conducting experiments is important in early childhood. The classic egg drop challenge is a staple of elementary school engineering projects. The problem is simple – How can you protect a fragile object in a fall? – but the solutions that children can dream up are limitless. Like other design projects, we encourage students to design, build, test, and then given enough time, repeat the process. The iteration process involved in adjusting design, construction, and identifying potential weaknesses is a key concept in making scientific predictions and conducting experiments. Help your student think about this as an experiment. Their goal is to keep the object from breaking, but make sure you are asking them probative questions that will make them consider not just how their design will work, but also why their design might not work and potential ways they can change their design.

Note: we do not encourage wasting food, so you may choose to use a water balloon instead of an egg in this activity. If you do use eggs, we urge you to place a container under the space where you drop them, so that you may catch the eggs (if they break) and use them for a meal afterwards.

What You Need

• Engineering Design Process template

• Eggs (or water balloons as an alternative)

• Found materials

• Step stool or small ladder

Steps

1. Inform students that engineers solve problems by first identifying specific design requirements and constraints. For this design challenge, the specific requirement is: Design something that will protect your egg, so it survives the drop.

2. Brainstorm design ideas on the Engineering Design Process template. This is the process engineers go through to find solutions to their problems, and it will help students to communicate their ideas to others.

3. Choose an idea, then build it from your found materials.

4. Test the egg drop from a height of about three feet. Ask students to record their findings on the Engineering Design Process template.

5. Discuss with students what they did and how their designs were intended to protect the eggs and ensure they landed without cracking the egg.

6. Go back to the Engineering Design Process template and design a new egg drop apparatus. Repeat the experiment.

7. Follow the guided questions to have a discussion about things that went well and things that didn’t during the experiment.

Guiding Questions

• Do you think your design will survive the fall? Why?

• Why did you choose this design to keep your egg safe?

• What will happen if we drop the egg from this way (angled to the right, left)?

• How did your second drop differ from the first?

• What worked well with your design?

• How can you improve your design for the next time?