egg drop

[liljediboi]

any suggestions on this lab? dropped from i guess 3 stories up and the vehicle must be around 50 grams. no parachutes or padding either.

[pedestrian]

I did something like this last year. I used a plastic cup and put weights in it so the bottom always hit first. I then glue half of a paper towel roll to the bottom of the cup so that the cup surrounds most of the roll. The egg fit snug in the roll so it didn't move and didn't break. The weights made sure that the vehicle didn't turn over while in flight and the bottom hit the ground and not the egg.
It looked a little like this http://www.ped01.com/cup.jpg

[recon]

There was an egg drop competition at my school the other day for younger students. Not one of their eggs survived the 3-storey drop. They were asked to construct the container in which to put the egg in out of only newspaper and tape. I am still wondering as to how this can be achieved as the teacher did not bother telling us.

[guerrilla7]

i need to do something similar to the egg drop for a big physics contest on march 6th..i have to build an egg protecting structure out of either paper, toothpicks, 1mm diameter string, and small amounts of white glue..and then drop something on the structure without the egg breaking...sounds easy right? but it's a contest so the heavier the thing u drop is, the higher the score..and the lighter and shorter the egg protecting structure, the higher the score
if anyone has any ideas for me i would really appreciate it
here's the original thread with the contest rules
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14252

[liljediboi]

Originally posted by recon
There was an egg drop competition at my school the other day for younger students. Not one of their eggs survived the 3-storey drop. They were asked to construct the container in which to put the egg in out of only newspaper and tape. I am still wondering as to how this can be achieved as the teacher did not bother telling us.

some people in our lab created a cone with some of that posterboard stuff. its stronger than newspaper, but with enough layers, it should give the same results.

now as a report back on mine, it worked.. during trials, but failed me when it was tested for a grade. [*(] [*(] [:((] [:(] thats 5 points off out of 40! jeez