Spring Egg Drop

Spring Egg Drop

Student 2 Work Sample

Spring Egg Drop

The question to answer is how to drop a raw egg off a 7.8m building without any damage
being done to the egg. I chose my design because I needed cushioning from all sides to prevent
the egg from cracking. My design should work because no matter which direction the egg hits
the concrete from there is protection. Because of gravity and acceleration, the box will continue
to gain momentum until it comes to an abrupt stop on the concrete, and I knew that I needed
something to take the force away from the box with the egg inside of it and I decided on using
marshmallows and popcorn. Because of the information that I gathered I came up with this
design:

Spring Egg Drop

Cotton
CottonBalls
Balls

Popcorn
Popcorn

Marshmallows
Marshmallows

Spring Egg Drop

The egg that is placed in the device will not crack, because of the impulse force and the
weight, than the egg that was not placed in the device. The constants in this experiment are the
eggs and the height of the building. Egg are a constant because all eggs used were roughly the
same size and weight, and the height of the building was the same each time. The dependant
variables is the comparison of the impulse force against the weight, and whether or not the egg
cracked. These are dependant variables because both the comparison of the impulse force and the
weight and the structure of the egg after the drop both depend on the design of the structure. The
independent variable is the device that the egg is placed in to be dropped because it is being
changed by the egg being placed inside it. The control group for this experiment are eggs being
dropped off of the building without a safety device because we are comparing the two to see if
the safety device actually worked.

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Materials:
Egg
Two boxes (9 X 8 X 4 7/16 and 2 9/16 X 8 X 2 9/16)
Marshmallow
Popcorn
Cotton Balls
Tape
Scissors
Procedure:
Locate two boxes with the dimensions of 9 1/18 X 8 X 4 7/16 and 2 9/16 X 8 X 2
9/16
With the smaller box, place four marshmallows at the bottom
Fill the smaller box halfway full with cotton balls
Create a space for the egg to fit snuggly into the cushioning
Place egg inside of the small box
Fill the remainder of the small box with cotton balls until only an inch remains
Place four marshmallows on top of the cotton balls

Spring Egg Drop

8. Lightly push down on the marshmallows

9. Close the top of the box
10. Tape shut
11. Put a layer of marshmallows of the bottom of the larger box
12. Clear a spot in the marshmallows to place the smaller box inside
13. Add popcorn on all sides around the smaller box until you get it of the way full
14. Add cotton balls until you reach the top of the larger box until you cannot see the top of the box
containing the egg anymore
15. Tape the top and bottom of the larger box securely
16. Drop the contraption from 5 cm onto a sensor and record the impulse
17. Place the contraption on the sensor and record the weight
18. Drop from the top of a building
19. Cut tape from the top of box
20. Check your results

After conducting the experiment, I averaged the force and weight of the control group
and compared them to the egg in my contraption, and I received these results:

Control Egg

Safety Device

Impact

1.4 N

15.0 N

Weight

1.0 N

8.0 N

According to my calculations the Control Egg egg had the force of 46% greater impulse than
weight, and the egg inside of the safety device had the force of 87.5% greater impulse than
weight. As you can see, the cushioning helped take the impact away from the egg to keep it from
cracking.
I accept my hypothesis because the egg in the safety device did not crack. By using the
cradle and cushioning idea, the impact was taken away from the egg. As you can see, the egg in
the safety device had a greater force than the regular egg did, and without the cushioning the egg
would have surely cracked. By dropping the egg from a 7.8m building, the momentum built up
enough to get a true measure of the cushioning device. One thing I have learned from this
experiment is what shock absorbers do. For example a shock absorber on a car or truck are

Spring Egg Drop

similar to the marshmallows in the experiment because they took the momentum of the sudden
stop away from the egg which kept it from cracking. Although everything went to plan, some
possible errors that could occur in this experiment is the fact that when testing the impact of the
safety device, it could have been dropped from a higher or lower point than 5 cm. Another
possible error could be that the eggs that are used are not all the same size or weight.