Egg Drop Ideas?

Recommended Videos

rabidmidget

New member
Apr 18, 2008
2,117
0
0
EntropicBliss said:
Put the balloon in the egg, and fill the balloon with hydrogen or helium. Depending on the weight of the egg and the density of the balloon, that may be enough to soften the landing. You can usually pick these up at party stores.

You could also do a parachute with weighed prongs on the bottom, and cushions between the egg and the prongs. Think of a lunar lander with a parachute.

If you're good with balsa, you could also make a Leonardo Da Vinci-esque glider.

You could also do a small helicopter mechanism, easily acquired at a hobby shop. You just need an RC speed controller and a carrying cage.

My favorite, however, is the spring-loaded ball. What you need to do is make two metal dodecahedron cages, one considerably smaller than the other. At every joint, you put a small spring with cushioning at both ends. However, this requires some metalwork skill. You could do it out of wood, but wood tends to snap on impact.
That helium idea could actually work quite well, although I would probably suggest not going with hydrogen due to it being flammable and all
 

rabidmidget

New member
Apr 18, 2008
2,117
0
0
Juven Ignus said:
rabidmidget said:
Juven Ignus said:
rabidmidget said:
Put the egg into a balloon (deflated) and then put this balloon into another balloon with a hole at the top, so that the neck of the original balloon fits through the hole. Surround the egg with tape to secure it. Put the egg into a box with the necks poking out of holes in the side of the box, secure the necks to the box.

This makes your egg suspended inside the box and the flexibility of the balloons acts as suspension. The only way it can be cracked is if the necks get detached from the box or the balloons get unattached.

This would probably be explained better with a diagram
I see what you're saying here, but wouldn't it cause a rubber band effect and hit the egg against the box?

Sorry if I'm nitpicking, but I only have three eggs left.
If the box is large enough, the egg won't hit the sides
You think a 6" x 6" x 6" box would do the trick?
Probably, although it would depend on the balloons
 

EntropicBliss

New member
Mar 15, 2010
41
0
0
rabidmidget said:
EntropicBliss said:
Circumcision.
That helium idea could actually work quite well, although I would probably suggest not going with hydrogen due to it being flammable and all
Hydrogen is lighter than helium, though, which may make a good difference.
 

Juven Ignus

New member
Sep 10, 2009
459
0
0
EntropicBliss said:
rabidmidget said:
EntropicBliss said:
Circumcision.
That helium idea could actually work quite well, although I would probably suggest not going with hydrogen due to it being flammable and all
Hydrogen is lighter than helium, though, which may make a good difference.
This is intended for 11 year olds...
 

EntropicBliss

New member
Mar 15, 2010
41
0
0
Juven Ignus said:
EntropicBliss said:
rabidmidget said:
EntropicBliss said:
Circumcision.
That helium idea could actually work quite well, although I would probably suggest not going with hydrogen due to it being flammable and all
Hydrogen is lighter than helium, though, which may make a good difference.
This is intended for 11 year olds...
This is science!
 

crimson5pheonix

It took 6 months to read my title.
Legacy
Jun 6, 2008
36,678
3,877
118
Juven Ignus said:
EntropicBliss said:
rabidmidget said:
EntropicBliss said:
Circumcision.
That helium idea could actually work quite well, although I would probably suggest not going with hydrogen due to it being flammable and all
Hydrogen is lighter than helium, though, which may make a good difference.
This is intended for 11 year olds...
Which is why you should use cornstarch and water. It would also be impressive if she could explain about non Newtonian liquids.
 

rabidmidget

New member
Apr 18, 2008
2,117
0
0
EntropicBliss said:
rabidmidget said:
EntropicBliss said:
Circumcision.
That helium idea could actually work quite well, although I would probably suggest not going with hydrogen due to it being flammable and all
Hydrogen is lighter than helium, though, which may make a good difference.
But it is still safer to go with the one, which isn't a potential explosive, not that it wouldn't be awesome
 

Ovrad

New member
Mar 30, 2010
15
0
0
I remember doing that same project in school. The best design by far was a foam football [http://www.flaghouse.com/prod_images/P14219.jpg] with a slit on the side (to insert the egg) and the middle hollowed out to make room for the egg.

That thing could be thrown pretty much any distance and the egg still survived.
 

ottenni

New member
Aug 13, 2009
2,996
0
0
We did this in school when i was much younger but at a much greater height and i seem to remember a box filled with confetti surrounding the egg working very well.
 

jackknife402

New member
Aug 25, 2008
319
0
0
10 feet? That's nothing, we dropped ours off the top of the school, which was 40 feet. Then again where their was no container, only a bottom device at 15 feet 3 years later. I won both drops.

My container for the first one was an old butter container, filled with cotton balls and a set of three parachutes ontop. It did cartwheels until it landed, but the egg was nice and sound.

The second one I built it with the same idea in mind of a car's impact system. I made a multi-tiered box that as the egg fell, each subsequent tier cradled it and acted as an increasingly more powerful cushion, so when it finally reached the bottom, the egg was going as slow as you would to pluck it out of the carton.
 

Marine Mike

New member
Mar 3, 2010
467
0
0
EntropicBliss said:
rabidmidget said:
EntropicBliss said:
Circumcision.
That helium idea could actually work quite well, although I would probably suggest not going with hydrogen due to it being flammable and all
Hydrogen is lighter than helium, though, which may make a good difference.
And hey, it worked for the Hindenburg.... right?
 

EntropicBliss

New member
Mar 15, 2010
41
0
0
Marine Mike said:
EntropicBliss said:
rabidmidget said:
EntropicBliss said:
Circumcision.
That helium idea could actually work quite well, although I would probably suggest not going with hydrogen due to it being flammable and all
Hydrogen is lighter than helium, though, which may make a good difference.
And hey, it worked for the Hindenburg.... right?
Yes.

What's your point?

(noteabovesentencewassarcasm)

The non-newtonian fluid is probably the best idea.
 

Avaholic03

New member
May 11, 2009
1,520
0
0
Causing a container to tumble while it is falling is very useful. It converts the impact into rotational energy which is not harmful to the egg.

As for packing material, have you ever seen those microbead pillows? Cut one of those open and use those beads to pack the egg. Should give the right amount of support and cushion.
 

JokerCrowe

New member
Nov 12, 2009
1,430
0
0
I would say a cardboard box filled with 'peanuts', y'know these styrofoam-thingies... or maybe something else, like a bag...
Use peanuts in any case.
 

TailsRodrigez

New member
Nov 13, 2009
310
0
0
this is what a friend of mine did:
make a container in the shape of an egg.
fill the big egg with packing peanuts(painted yellow).
place the egg inside
put a small weight at the top so it falls with the top of the egg facing down
when it lands, it cracks open and the peanuts come out looking like the pilled egg, while the egg remains fine

(basically what he summarized to me)
 

Angerwing

Kid makes a post...
Jun 1, 2009
1,734
0
41
Darkside360 said:
10 Feet? Thats all you have to make it survive?

When I did it they dropped it off the school roof, 2 stories. Over half the class failed it.

I put mine in a tennis ball and then wrapped it in bubble paper.
And we did ours out of a fourth story window. Kids these days.
 

Biosophilogical

New member
Jul 8, 2009
3,264
0
0
If you get 6 balloons and a box, and maybe some super-glue duct-tape stuff. You can put the egg in the first balloon, then cut a hole in the side of the second balloon (along one of the six sides (top bottome and four sides)), then put the first balloon into it and pull the end of the first balloon through the hole so you have a super-balloon with twoo ends. Do the same for the third balloon, but cut two holes, and pull the ends through a hole each. Rinse and repeat until you have a balloon with 6 ends that you can put through holes cut into the box (small holes) and glue/nail/ducttape them to it. This way, it had the 'bouncy' thing to stop it undertaking massive amounts of force all at once, but it also won't bounce into the walls of the box because the other balloons would hold it in place.

Anyways, this is just me getting creative, as it would probably survive without the need for parachute-style slowing.
 

newuseforvintage

In Andre the Giant's posse
Sep 6, 2009
166
0
0
I remember doing this but with MUCH tighter rules. You were given
1 a4 sheet of paper
6 drinking straws
1 meter of sticky tape
1 egg.

The trick was to make a cone using the paper and straws but with a small hole in the bottom. You then put the egg in there so it's tip is pointing out. Drop.

The game was a way of explaining how force distributes, a chicken egg is shaped so that when the chicken lays it it can drop on to the tip without breaking. The trick is building something that ENSURES that it will land directly on the tip.

I used the word tip a record breaking number of times there I think :p