Egg Drop Challenge
Programs team members Charity and Andrew have an eggs-ellent challenge! How far can you drop a raw egg without it cracking? Not very far, right? But what if you could use items from your recycling bin, whatever you can find in your junk drawer, and tape? Could you make something to allow your egg to survive a 6-foot drop? Maybe a 10-foot drop, maybe even higher!
Let’s have an egg drop challenge!
Here’s what you need:
- Household supplies like tape, scissors, cardboard, an old sponge, whatever is in the recycling, old containers, etc.
- Eye protection
- A raw egg
- Maybe even a ladder and, if you opt for this, some adult participation
- Safety glasses
Here’s the challenge:
Design an apparatus to allow a raw egg to survive a fall from the highest point that you and your adult decide upon.
1. Collect material around the house, preferably items that have been recycled and could be reused. Some recommended items would be: cardboard, empty egg cartons, cups, straws, plastic bags, sponges or foam, and duct tape. Safety glasses are highly encouraged.
2. Think about what your apparatus needs to do, and draw your ideas. It’s important to plan out your design, so you can solve problems before you begin building. You can use this design to refer to when you are building. This is the design process and is crucial for innovation.
3. Begin building. There is no right or wrong way to build one of these contraptions. Be creative! You have made a prototype. It’s the first of its exact kind!
4. When your apparatus is complete, look it over. Do you want to change anything before you test it?
5. Test it! The adult who helped establish how far of a drop that the egg should fall from can help drop the egg from the selected height. When watching the egg fall, wear safety glasses. You don’t want to get egg yolk or apparatus parts in your eyes.
After the apparatus has landed, check the egg. Did it crack? If yes, go back to your drawings and make some modifications. If it didn’t crack, challenge yourself. Can you make your apparatus with less stuff? Can the egg survive a fall from an even greater distance? What did you learn was most effective about your design? What was not very effective?
Challenges like this are not only fun they prepare us for difficult tasks engineers have to solve, like delivering rovers to Mars!
If you take this challenge, please share your most successful design and tell us how far of a drop your egg survived with #SMOatHome!
