Egg drop project?

Project Criteria: The size of a shoe box. ~The protection for the egg must be engineered, not just filled with stuff.~No type of packing material will be allowed. This includes but may not be limited to such items as : bubble wrap, cotton balls, tissue , styrofoam pellets, cronstarch pellets, pillows, stuffed animals, shaving cream, paper, ballons or egg crate foam. No type of food may be used as packing material. This includes : jello, marshmallow, popcorn, or peanut butter,~ No wooden or metal boxes~No parachutes or helium filled balloons will be allowed~The egg will be provided at the time of the drop which you will then have to insert it into your project~ No boxes will be accepted that are preloaded with an egg. And it must have physics behind the design. Including Newtons laws of motion, terminal velocity, momentum, and gravity.





Thanks for the help ahead of time.

Egg drop project?
I did this in college and made little accordion type springs out of paper and put them all over the egg. Then enclosed it. Hope that helps. Sorry no physics.
Reply:I've done this before too. I did a two pronged approach the





first order of business was to slow the descent of the egg by increasing the cross sectional area of the device to increase wind resistance. I use a series of "radial" wings which imparted a spin to the project using some of the energy that otherwise would be accelerating toward the ground. Another project used glider style wings to accomplish the same and was slightly more successful than mine at slowing the descent. Both methods are designed to lower terminal velocity be reducing the acceleration due to gravity into horizontal acceleration.





The second is to find a way to cushion the impact. I used a hanging device which operated on rubber bands in all directions from the egg. By putting bands in all directions I prevented violent backlash (for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction) that was prevalent in other sling designs. I also created a honeycomb crush zone on the bottom on the box, my box always landed the same way up because of the rotary wings.





The rubber bands will eventually stop the egg as the oscillation decays naturally as gravity slowly overcomes the momentum.
Reply:If the sides of the box are re-inforced with ice cream sticks, you could use a series of elastic bands with medium amount of tension so that the egg is essentually encased in the bands acting as shock absorber.
Reply:use springs....attach them carefully..inside the box.
Reply:I'd say there are probably 2 classes of designs you could go with: something that falls slowly or something that absorbs alot of the impact.





The first category of designs include things like building a glider that will glide down to the ground, or something with a propeller mounted on top so that the blades will be spun by the relative upward air flow while the project is falling- if you've ever seen a pine-cone seed spiral slowly down to the ground, you'll understand why this design will work very well.





A previous poster suggested using springs, and that falls into the second class of designs. It's a good idea, but I think it would probably be easier to do something with, say, rubber bands. If you design your box in such a way that the egg would just be suspended in a harness or something like that attached to the sides of the box with rubber bands, a lot of the shock will be absorbed and protect the egg from the imapct.





In general, keep in mind that the terminal velocity of a heavy object is dependent on it's cross-sectional area - the wider the better, the less mass the better. Good luck!
Reply:I did this in 6th grade it was pretty fun...but i dont remember what the winning one was built with...........use a plastic bag from the grocery store as a parachute
Reply:Poke one hole on two sides of the box. Use a cut piece of panty hose, tie one end of the hose and put it through one of the holes, when you get your egg, pull it tight and insert the hose through the other side of the box and tie it off. Don't make the holes too big or your knots will fall into the box on impact.


Hope this helps



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