Egg Drop Design Challenge

Project Explanation:
For the Egg Drop Design project, we had to design and build a device that would protect an egg from cracking or breaking when it was dropped from specific heights.

Technological Concepts:
We had to make sure that when the device was dropped, the inertia of the falling egg would be counteracted with the device when it hit the ground. The device had to have a nice combination of cushion, sturdiness, and materials. Also, the lighter the device, the better, because of less inertia.

Learning Goals:
The goal of this project was to see how well we could utilize materials that we had, in order to make a very sturdy device. Combining the different materials made us think about the small details that could affect our device in any way. We had to think in depth about our design and the factors of its fall.

Our Design!

 

Our design's body was a small cardboard box. We glued cotton balls to the bottom of the box, in order to cushion the first impact of the box with the ground when it was to be dropped. We also lined the bottom of the box with four popsicle sticks that were to keep the box standing upright and not tip over when it fell. We stuck eight straws into the box, making two squares on the inside, between which we would place the egg. We then stuffed the remaining space inside the box with shredded paper, for compression and cushion. Since the rules of the design challenge stated that at least a small part of the egg must be visible, we left a very small hole in the top of the box and we didn't cover the top of the egg, in order to make it visible.






Positive Feedback:
My partner and I were quite confident in our design, because it was overall very sturdy, and we thought the compression concepts that we put into it were excellent. The straws that held the egg, along with the shredded paper that surround the egg, and the cotton balls on the bottom of the box were a great combination of compression and cushioning.

Redesign:
Everything about our design seemed pretty solid, until we dropped it during the actual test. As the device fell, it started spinning in different directions and rotating in the air, so it was completely upside-down when it hit the ground! And because we had left a hole and the exposed part of the egg at the top, that exposed part hit the ground and therefore smashed the egg. When thinking about a redesign, we realized that it would have helped a lot to cushion all around the whole device, so that it could land on any side of it and still be able to save the egg. Also, if there was a way to prevent the box from flipping in the air, we would do that.

Technological Resources:
We each brought some materials from our houses to use in our device. Luckily, both my partner (Amanda Dooley) and I had done this project in seventh grade science. We were even in the same group back then! Even though our design was way different from seventh grade's, we were prepared to think about certain concepts while building this design. Also, the technology lab had plenty of tools for us to use, such as rulers, scissors, tape, etc.

Biggest Challenge:
The biggest challenge of building our egg drop design was that we had to think about as many aspects of the device as possible, including cushioning, compression, sturdiness, weight, and more. We had to pull all those ideas together and use our materials to execute them in an efficient and effective way.

What I learned from this challenge:
I learned from this challenge that when designing devices like this egg drop design, I have to think about as many scenarios as possible that could happen to the device when it is in action. My partner and I didn't consider that our device would spin and flip upside-down when it fell, and that was an issue. We probably could have added something to our design that would have saved the egg in that case. So, overall, I must be prepared to overcome the worst-case scenarios.