Egg Drop

Momberg Math and Science Competition

So technically this is not a personal project because it was for the Central Methodist University Science Contest. We finished Second place in 2019. There was a knowledge test that we did surprisingly well with. But what I want to talk about is the drop device because that is much more interesting. The rules were that we were to drop it from 3 story's high and there was a target at the bottom and the closer you were to the center the better your points were. So that means that you don't want the device floating around because that can create random results. So we made a device that is heavy with no drag contraptions so that it would drop straight down and hit the center of the bulls eye. But that created an issue with keeping the egg from breaking because coming to a sudden stop. So I added the end of a panty hose to give the egg some room to slowly come to a stop because it has some stretch room.

The Egg Lander

Water provides weight to guide the egg straight down while being adjustable so that it does not hit harder than necessary. Egg needs room to move down at impact without hitting the bottom of the cup. Put extra stuffing above the egg so it does not hit the lid or have room to wobble. Make sure the egg is upright as it should be able to handle more impact this way. That being said the lander must land on its nose upright or else the egg will smash on the side as the lander is not designed for side impact. Put some pillow stuffing in the cup before putting in the panty hose. Cut the toes off of a panty hose and stretch the open end around the top of the top cup this creates the spot to place the egg.

These show the top cup bottom smashed out. We got lucky the egg did not break this shows how important it is to have the panty hose tight and padding under it.

This is the Pringles can that we used on the bottom. The impact was enough to dent the bottom of the can out so that it was flat with the edge instead of set in like normal.

On the first test when we dropped it from the roof of the garage we used a smaller cup instead of the Pringles can. On impact it made a satisfying pop noise as the small cup busted under the pressure like a balloon. The cup sounds and looks impressive but the can avoids the clean up mess.

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