Creating a Shock-Absorbing Design for an Egg Drop

[Crazyhooligin]

I need ideas to build a design that will prevent an egg from cracking or breaking.

Guidelines:
Design has to have a mass of <300g.
Must fit into a Sterillite Plastic box
Cannot simply be wraped in something (i.e. a pillow, bubble wrap, t-shirts)
Cannot reduce velocity (wings, Parachutes)


The egg will be dropped from around 1.5 m. at first, then it will be dropped from 10 m, so it should be able to withstand multiple trials. Thanks for your ideas!

 

[Gorz]

Design something with elestic bands in mind, like a frame, that holds the egg in the middle in some form of cage which is suspended from an outer frame using elastic bands. The idea of this excersise is to minimise impulse, so start thinking ablong the lines of how you could extend the time it takes for the egg to come to rest.

Throwing an egg against a wall < time to rest < throwing egg against loose sheet.

 

[turbo]

No wings? That's tough!

 

[turbo]

I take it that you cannot encase the egg in Jello or some other material?? Got to be a mechanical system of some kind?

 

[Crazyhooligin]

yeah those are the only guidelines. I saw an interesting design on another site where you take a roll of toilet paper, place the egg in the center, stuff crumpled paper in the two ends and then duct tape the whole thing. I'm going to try it but suggestions are always welcome.

 

[turbo]

How about if you suspend the egg in the Sterilite box using a network of rubber bands, then fill the box with water to futher damp the movement of the egg under impact. You'll have to duct-tape the lid down securely because water is incompressible and it will tend to pop the lid on impact.