MJ300 Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 Ok guys need some more ideas for another physics project. Instead of a mousetrap car we're doing an egg drop contest. The parameters are no parachutes, rockets, or anything attached to the building they are being dropped from. My ideas so far are balloons surrounding some sort of container with the egg inside, or a crush sleeve on the outside to take most of the impact. Any other thoughts??? Oh yeah, and if you remember the post about the mousetrap car a few weeks ago, our group car did win then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaekl Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 Peanut butter is a common trick with the middle schoolers. Yours sounds higher. Spreading the force is the theory with the PB. Maintaining even force on the egg may do it, but a collapsable shell reduces the impact and decreases the deccleration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Sam Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 You find also try finding some farm fresh eggs to use for your drop as the shell is quite a bit thicker and they are much hard to break than the crappy store bought eggs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtdesigns Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 You know theres a huge degree of structural integrity in Natures design of the egg.. I saw a trick where you put an egg in the palm of your hand, and even the strongest of guys can't crush it. Build on the already strengths of the egg, find out its weaknesses.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UNL1MTD Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 When we did this we were only allowed to use printer paper and scotch tape to make the vehicles the eggs traveled in. Typically the drops went from 5ft to 10ft to 15ft etc. feet to get a good judging. We always made some type of cone which absorbs the impact and a shredded nest to hold the egg. For us it was all about making sure the cone hit first and deformed, rather than it landing on its side at all. What is the distance of your drop? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete M Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 No helium? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfpackjeeper Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 there were pretty lax rules when I did it. I got a foam rubber block from the pit in a gymnastics gym and cut a slit to the middle just big enough to slide the egg in. Worked great, I also put little chute on the side that the slit was on to make sure that it fell strait and the side with the slit landed up. the foam block was about 8"x8" and it was about a 2.5"slit right in the middle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renOnv Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 I'm a bit of a smart @$$, and also quite the procrastinator. In high school when i had to do this I just grabbed the pillow off my bed on my way to school and put my egg on top of the pillow and under the pillowcase. It didn't break 8) . If there isnt a size requirement then just go to wallmart and buy an extra pillow or two and duct tape them up into a pillow envelope then spray paint something on the pillow case "government issue" would work well 8) . If i remember correctly, the people with the most complicated designs all had broken eggs. :cheers: The down side? You won't get scouted by NASA for their latest research team. The up side? Neither will the kid who spent over five days and a hundred dollars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete M Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 Nice. :D I always liked the more difficult drop contests that involved an egg, 100 toothpicks, a bottle of glue, and a 2 story drop. Crumple zones anyone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mfpdm Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 Paint the egg with a clear two part epoxy. That should harden the shell, then encase it in wax. Not the hard brittle stuff but the soft wax. Or, throw the egg at the teachers car and take the zero. :evil: :cheers: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WyoCherokee Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 Ok guys need some more ideas for another physics project. Instead of a mousetrap car we're doing an egg drop contest. The parameters are no parachutes, rockets, or anything attached to the building they are being dropped from. My ideas so far are balloons surrounding some sort of container with the egg inside, or a crush sleeve on the outside to take most of the impact. Any other thoughts??? Oh yeah, and if you remember the post about the mousetrap car a few weeks ago, our group car did win then. i remember this from middle school. we used a s***t ton of egg carton foam pads, duct tape and to make it round so it doesnt hit a square surface rather the Kinetic energy gets used when it lands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renOnv Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 Or, throw the egg at the teachers car and take the zero. :evil: best answer by far. Painting it in many layers of expoxy would be a sweet option too, play it off like "I've got faith in my egg as is" and hav everyoe expect it to shatter not knowing its coated. but then again, I'm assuming the teacher has the eggs and you bring in the container, then put the egg in right before you drop it to prevent someone from draining the egg through a hol and filling it with something else like spray in foam or elmers glue ect. I'm telling you man, if you want an easy A just get a pillow and duct tape Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfpackjeeper Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 Paint the egg with a clear two part epoxy. That should harden the shell, then encase it in wax. Not the hard brittle stuff but the soft wax. Or, throw the egg at the teachers car and take the zero. :evil: :cheers: first drill a small hole and drain out the yolk, then fill it with 2 part epoxy. You can still throw it at the car if you like, it will probably be more satisfying. I still remember from back in the day when I did this, the girl who showed up had a hard boiled egg... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJ300 Posted March 26, 2009 Author Share Posted March 26, 2009 Well, I guess these somewhat strange ideas are better than nothing :rotf: BUT there are size parameters which is a half a meter by a half a meter. Our teacher is providing the eggs so we can't cheat and coat them in epoxy, and we can't use any liquid (splattables) that will make a mess. And the final thing I forgot to mention that its being dropped from about 42 feet and by our calculations, our eggs will hit the ground at 35 mph!! :eek: And I just realized that 35 mph is pretty fast. If I do use balloons do you think that they will pop once they hit the ground (which will be cement)?? Keep the good stories coming though :popcorn: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WahooSteeler Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 My ideas so far are balloons surrounding .... the egg inside Eggs-actly. So just get sweet Jessica over there in your avatar to place it in between her balloons. Then push her off the 42ft ledge. :yes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfpackjeeper Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 from that height I would a 1/2 meter square block of low density foam rubber. Should easily survive it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJ300 Posted March 27, 2009 Author Share Posted March 27, 2009 My ideas so far are balloons surrounding .... the egg inside Eggs-actly. So just get sweet Jessica over there in your avatar to place it in between her balloons. Then push her off the 42ft ledge. :yes: :rotfl2: :rotfl2: :rotfl2: :clapping: :clapping: :clapping: Best idea yet!!!! :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UNL1MTD Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 And I just realized that 35 mph is pretty fast. If I do use balloons do you think that they will pop once they hit the ground (which will be cement)?? Keep the good stories coming though :popcorn: I think if you are allowed to use balloon (which might violate the parachute rule) then it will not hit as fast as 35 mph. If you have ever dropped a balloon, you know that it falls different than other objects. No reason it shouldn't survive the fall, or at least so I would think. The real question is how many balloon would you need to offset the weight of the egg? I think that might be getting close to violating the .5 x .5 meter restriction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Sam Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 is this .5m x.5m x.5m? if its just a footprint of .5m^2 then you can make it real tall with lots of impact zone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrSimon Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 When I did it in high school, I used a cardboard box with a piece of my mom's panty hose stretched across the inside. In side of the hose I stuffed some tissue paper, then the egg, then some more tissue paper. That way if the box landed on its end, the tissue paper would hopefully absorb the impact. Luckily, the box landed on its bottom and the egg just bounced up and down in the hose and was fine. It took a handful of test drops to get the tension and positioning right, but it was easy and didn't take long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
project88mj Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 i did the same style project myjr year of high school and we were olny alowed to use printer paper. no tape glue ... just paper. my group got 27feet here is the design: you need to make small paper cones about the size of a golf ball and put them in the 4 corners of a piece of paper and one in the centerthen lay a piece of paper on top of that. the next layer of cones go on top of that BUT move then to the center by an inch of so then repeat till the four cones are about 1inch appart. make sure the egg hits the center of the cones how it is the egg hits the top piece of paper then the paper cones colapse then the next piece of papeg is hit, cones smash, and so on. its kinda like the stunt people who land on boxes after jumping off a bulding. dashes,------, equal paper sheets slashes ,/\, equal cones don't look at the periods ..... pretend they werent there ------------------------------------------------------------------- ....................../\.............................../\ ...................../..\............................./..\ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ............../\............................................./\ ............./..\.........................................../..\ ------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------- ......./\.........................................................../\ ....../..\........................................................./..\ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ the force of the impact is transfered from layer to layerand outward at the same time remember friction is your friend :clapping: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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