Egg Drop Challenge! Need ideas for winning designs

[Addiep]

Homework Statement

Egg Drop Competition
Purpose: to design a "safety device" to protect an egg Concepts includes impact, momentum.
Egg drop parameters:
Device must have a volume less than 1600 cubic centimeters and cannot exceed 25 direction.
Device must have a mass less than 1 kg.
No parachutes (which is ANY material attached to the egg device in such a way that it outward as it falls, catching air.
No tape or glue can touch the egg.
bbw
Device must be built so the egg can load and unload in less than 1
minute,amulov
Isto
No repairs will be allowed once the competition has begun.
Students will be allowed to direct the release point, however, will NOT be allowed to release the object.
Grade A large eggs will be placed in a small plastic Ziploc sandwich bag and then placed into the device.

Relevant Equations

None

I was thinking using 2 purple mattress samples, and taping them together, I do want other ideas though, the main guidelines are;
Must have a volume LESS than 1600 cubic centimeters, and CAN'T exceed 25 cm in ANY direction.
Must be LESS than 1 kg.
NO parachutes.
NO glue or Tape can touch the egg.
MUST be able to take egg out in less than 1 minute.
Grade A large eggs will be used.

 

[.Scott]

What I get from the OP:

So, 3D printing is allowed.
Any aerodynamic surface shape is OK so long as it does not "catch" air. So, I would guess that a feathered dart-like object would be OK.

 

[berkeman]

@Addiep -- Welcome to PF.

Have a look at the bottom of the page at the "Similar threads" that are listed. You can tell that this has been discussed many times before at PF, so a good start for you would be to read through those threads to see if they help to give you more ideas.

 

[WWGD]

I thought this was about Chinese restaurant soup.

 

[kuruman]

I don't see any statement specifying that the eggs must be raw. In these competitions anything that is not specifically prohibited, is allowed. Read the official rules carefully. If that's really the case, meaning that the people who wrote the rules got lazy, use a hard-boiled egg in a cardboard box with some crinkled newspaper padding.

 

[berkeman]

In these competitions anything that is not specifically prohibited, is allowed. Read the official rules carefully.

My wife's work had a team building exercise one year where they were supposed to build miniature soap box derby style gravity cars and race them against other teams on a ramp that was built by the managers. I read the rules and there was nothing about the max weight limit for the cars (which I had my wife double-check with the organizers at work -- they basically said "No, there's no weight limit, we don't care about that"). Okie dokie.

I helped my wife's team build their car with a spare 2 pound lead weight from my scuba weightbelt, and of course they figuratively destroyed the competition. And they literally destroyed the barriers at the end of the down-ramp, blowing right through them at the bottom of each of their runs. I think a max weight was specified for that competition the next year...

 

[Addiep]

What I get from the OP:

So, 3D printing is allowed.
Any aerodynamic surface shape is OK so long as it does not "catch" air. So, I would guess that a feathered dart-like object would be OK.

I'll see what I can do, as I don't have a library in my town, and nobody I know has a 3D printer. Updates will be frequent

 

[haruspex]

From the perspective of the physics, the key is that the device needs to exert a certain impulse without exceeding some threshold force at any time. That implies you should arrange for a near constant force applied over the longest possible time (and, equivalently, distance). The 25cm height limit constrains the latter, but it seems that the top of the egg could be higher than 25cm from the base of the device.
E.g., consider the egg in a cup lodged at the top of a cardboard tube so that when the bottom of the tube hits the ground the cup slides down, just stopping in time. The hard part would be arranging that the frictional force is not quite enough to break the egg.

 

[Addiep]

I'll see what I can do, as I don't have a library in my town, and nobody I know has a 3D printer. Updates will be frequent

I've finished my design, i've used a purple mattress sample and I believe it'll work!