Best way to have an egg drop 15 feet and SURVIVE

[Bulldog13]

I got a call from my little cousin about one of his school projects. Basically, the have to devise a mechanism for dropping an egg 15 feet, having it land in a smallish circle (not sure on the size), and have it not break.

I figured I would turn to ATOT to see what everyone here did when they had that project. My best idea was a smallish parachute and sticking it in a plastic jar of peanut butter. I don't really remember what I did when I was younger.

Thoughts ?

 

[keeleysam]

Tell him to do his own damn homework.

Personally, I just put it in a big foam ball, and it worked.

 

[fs5]

suspend egg inside box with rubber bands.

 

[PAB]

parachute!

 

[KK]

drop it from 16 feet.

 

[PAB]

Originally posted by: fs5
suspend egg inside box with rubber bands.

Tried that, the vertical movement is too high and it hits the ground.

 

[DaTT]

Have somebody catch it

 

[MikeyIs4Dcats]

you need crumple zones. it also works to subscribe to the "helicopter" effect of using a rotational design to help slow it down

 

[NuAlphaMan]

Boil the egg. It'll break, but the mess won't be as bad and if you're hungry, you can eat it!

 

[DAM]

I've personally seen this work. Bag of doritos, insert egg in said bag, drop bag, remove egg.


dam(eg)

 

[AnimeKnight]

When I did mine.. I had a weight limitation on it. So you might want to check on that. Parachute would work.. except you will be way off target as the wind will blow it off its course.

My device was cone shaped with a thick paper plate (or cardboard) on the top. Kinda like this...

--------------
\ /
\ /
\ /
\/

then I placed the egg in the center and packed with newspaper. It survived its fall and was a little bit off its course.

Just for the fun of it I also built one with jello in box. It was wayy over the weight limit but I want to see if an egg placed in the jello would survive the fall. Unfortunately it did not survive the impact. But it was an awesome and messy sight though.

 

[Abhi]

http://users.adelphia.net/~jberger5/eggdrop.html ... first result from google

 

[nissan720]

Originally posted by: PAB
parachute!

 

[dullard]

You have three options:
1) Slow the velocity of the impact (wings, parachute, helicopter blade, etc)
2) Soften the impact (cushins, energy absorbing items that break instead, etc)
3) Combine the two above.

Since you have to drop it in a precise location #1 and #3 are probably out. For example, if it is a windy day, the parachute could take you far off course. Thus you are left with #2.

From there, you have an infinite number of possibilites from roll cages to corn flakes.

 

[AnimeKnight]

the drawing didn't turn out as previewed. but basically the cone shape is in the center.

 

[FoBoT]

lower it on a 14 ft 11 inch string

call the string the "parachute"

 

[Bulldog13]

Originally posted by: keeleysam
Tell him to do his own damn homework.

Personally, I just put it in a big foam ball, and it worked.

I did engineering in college so I'm always the one who gets these calls. I've tried to explain to them a few times that software engineering and mechanical engineering are two different things.

 

[OrganizedChaos]

put it back in the chicken and drop the chicken.

 

[d3n]

pantyhose

 

[cheesehead]

I had good luck using a thin plastic parachute about 15" in diamter, and suspending from it about four "bubbles" of bubble wrap forming a cup for the egg.

I got my design down to seven grams, and sucessfully dropped an egg from 25'.

 

[yosuke188]

Originally posted by: OrganizedChaos
put it back in the chicken and drop the chicken.

Best one

 

[MikeyIs4Dcats]

definitely depends on the limits of the assignment. we had to do it using only paper and we had a weight limit and a limit on the amount of paper.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

You're allowed to use parachutes? That's pretty lame. Plus it's only 15 feet, that's not bad at all. I had to drop mine off the back of the school bleachers, which are approximately 45 feet. I made a box out of poster paper, filled it with cotton, put it inside the middle. Then, I put small water balloons on the outside of that poster paper box, and put it inside a bigger poster paper box (only 7x7x7 though). You see, the balloons, being inside the bigger box, gave it controlled cushioning, and no matter which way it fell, not only was it cushioned, but the net force of the fall was lessened by the friction created between the balloons on the side and the outer box. My egg didn't even move.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: OrganizedChaos
put it back in the chicken and drop the chicken.

That's like trying to load a pez dispenser in reverse.

 

[randay]

coat the eggs shell with epoxy or fiberglass or something then whip it at the ground as hard as you can.