Design a $40 Egg-Protecting Device for the Egg Drop Challenge

[Doominater84]

Homework Statement

The egg protecting device cannot slow down the natural descent of the egg in any
form: The mechanism used to protect the egg cannot rely on buoyancy (i.e. no
inflated balloon-based solutions) or air resistance (i.e. no parachutes or solutions
designed to increase the air resistance of the container)
2. Cost of all of the materials used must be provided (see rubric on pg. 5 and sample
materials data sheet on pg. 4) and the total price of the materials used in the eggprotecting device cannot exceed $40
3. The device must be ready by or before the assigned egg-drop date. NO late
submissions will be accepted

Any foams, or anything like that is ok as long as they are not used for air resistance.

This is How grade Will be Calculated:
Calculating a scaled egg drop score: Once all of the projects are turned in
the “mass * volume of the device” (mV) product for all of the devices
submitted will be calculated. These mV products will be ranked and a rating
scale will be created (smaller values of mV are preferable to large values).
The final “egg drop” score will be calculated by multiplying the raw score by
the mV scale:
egg drop score = raw score (how broken) x scaled mV product.

.

Homework Equations

egg drop score = raw score (how broken) x scaled mV product.
J=F*t

The Attempt at a Solution

My idea is to fill a small container with some homemade gel, fit the egg inside of it and drop it :) This is how i will make the gel: http://www.myscienceproject.org/gelatin.html

I am however open to other ideas as long as they are as lightweight and compact as possible. (Such as foam, popcorn whatever...)

**I have decided that instead of homeade ballistics gel i would use oobleck.

 

[Delphi51]

Go ahead and do it! I'm sure you will find refinements and compromises as you build. It would be really boring if everyone looked up and copied the best ideas on the web.

 

[PotentialE]

The gel is a good idea, the first thing that came to my mind was a square, metal roll-cage. you could put rubber bands all around the egg and attach them to the sides, so the egg would be held in the exact center of the cage by the elastic bands. that way, when the egg drops, it won't contact the ground. your idea could potentially have a smaller volume, though.

 

[Doominater84]

I was thinking the gel would be to heavy though because it has to be as small and light as possible.

 

[PotentialE]

I did an egg drop project from 40 feet last year, but I had a $0 budget. What I did was I took a small, rectangular cardboard box and cut one hole on each side (the small sides). then I took 2 water bottles and cut them in half. I took the top half of each, filled it with pillow stuffing, and then placed the egg inside. I then rubber-banded the two together and put the caps of the bottles in each hole, suspending the egg in the middle of the box. Then I filled the box with more stuffing and closed it. Then I wrapped the entire thing in bubble wrap. It worked, the egg did not break.

 

[utm01]

I did this project as well and put the egg inside a box filled with sponge. On the outside of the box I cut out pieces of an egg carton and put one on each side (the dome shape is the strongest)