Physics Challenge!!!

[Noedar]

Hi, im in my last year of highschool and my final exam of physics is a very creative challenge. I have to throw an egg form the third floor of the school and it has to touch the ground without breaking. Last year students already tried throwing the egg inside jelly, into a bucket with water, with a parachute and lots of ways. I have made lots of ideas, but in all of them the egg broke or it didnt touch the ground. So when i was searching in the internet for a clever idea for my task , i thought, maybe i could ask all the clever guys from the forums for some ideas that could help! ANY help would be really appreciated!

 

[Viper GTS]

The egg actually has to touch the ground? (ie not just come to rest unbroken) Is there a limit as to how long it has to take?

Could you, for example, make a pan out of ice, fill it with water, parachute the egg into the water, and then wait for the ice to melt?

Viper GTS

 

[yowolabi]

Is the egg boiled?

 

[Glitchny]

put egg in pack pack filled with packing peanuts, drop bag... remove egg to is lays on the ground... done. (use a bag that u feel safe in getting broken nasty egg in, cause it may not work)

or use a big sheet, have a group of people holding it and when u drop the egg have them slowly move the sheet down as the egg hits, (cushioning it) may take a few tries for the right tiiming... or get one of thos inflatablke things they use in the movies for people to land on

 

[BigJelly]

You could do a paracuhet but add weight via a string heres my sh!ty picture:
(------O----☺
( = parachute, --- = string, O = egg, and ☺ = weight.
By doing this, after the weight hits the ground the large parachute will drastically slow down the egg. I know the extra weight will increase the velocity of the system, but all you need is for the egg to remain intact and i believe this will work. Also it will add more stability and allow a larger parachute.

Either method you do, adding weight to one end will help determine what side the device will land on. Which will help you build a better safty system for the egg.

 

[Glitchny]

my class did somethign like this except we had to throw them to a partner... and keep backing up to see how far we could get.... i think the teacher just wanted us to get egg all over our partners

 

[woowoo]

Just dont let go of the egg when you JUMP out of the window.

 

[ryzmah]

Start by hard boiling the egg - then you can parachute it down.

 

[Moonbeam]

Surely you have weight restrictions or other limitations, otherwise this is rather easy. You could jump with the egg, trying as you die to lay the egg down. You could throw several hundred tons of earth first. Perhaps easier would be to glue fishing line to the egg, throw it and lower it down. If you yourself aren't allowed to lower it rig a pully and instead of you on the other end put a weight somewhat lighter than the egg, so the egg falls slowly as it raises the other weight. You could also slide it down a spiral ramp or inside a rubber tube. You could lay it on an iceberg, or fill a thirty foot section of pipe with water and weight the egg so it sinks. You could train a bird, or pitch a chicken off that's just about to lay.

 

[Kyteland]

I had to do something similar to this ~10 years ago, but the egg didn't have to touch the ground. What I did was build a missle shaped enclosure (out of drinking straws) that fell at full speed to the gound. The was an apparatus on the end that hit the ground (made of popsicle sticks no less) that expanded upon impact and cussioned the egg. What was really cool was that the force of the egg being pushed in to the nose of the enclosure was what triggered the apparatus. In the end the egg was safely 2-3'' above the ground, unbroken. The egg remained intact ~2/3 of the time.

If you did something like this only added a bunch of dirt above the egg then when it hit the ground the dirt would be released and fill in that last couple of inches to get the egg to the "ground". Technically the egg touches the dirt which touches the ground, so it is touching the ground. This may, of course, be bending the rules.

 

[MikeMike]

our school does something like this, only the egg doesnt hit the ground, and Here are someof the pics from it

Winner, which was determined by having the lightest contraption (only 2 stories)

 

[CPA]

I like the parachute idea with a hard boiled egg. But I would coat the hard boiled egg with some hardener, like finger nail hardnerer or something similar. Put layers and layers of the stuff on it. and of course, make sure the parachute is big enough.

 

[LoneDust]

parachutes definately works but you have to watch for stability. I did the same thing in jr high in tech class competition; ended up with me and another guy both with parachute-like designs. By the time we get to drop the egg from the 5th floor his parachute was flipped over by the wind, toppled the egg and of course it fell out of its container and cracked. Mine was in a conic shape, and pointing down, so it decends a little bit faster but it was rather stable. The cardboard I used withstood the landing and the egg did not break.

 

[xirtam]

If you can use anything you want, this is a real piece of cake. First wrap the thing in those plastic bubble wrap things. We didn't get to use that, but if we could have, it would have made it even better.

Then make a triangle harness for the egg out of straws. Bring the straws up from the harness and use some kind of paper to make a propeller (three-wing shape).

The helicopter will spin, slowing the rate of decent, and upon landing, the harness will protect the egg. Chances are, however, if you're allowed to use bubble wrap, you could wrap it with enough of that stuff to not need anything else. Just throw the thing.

We always used the triangular harness. It was an event at the state level of Science Olympiad when I was in Jr. High/High School. We won that every year.

 

[XZeroII]

drill a hole in it and pour lots and lots of epoxy in there (after you emtpy some of the glue out). Then whip that sucker at the ground as hard as you can.

 

[Kyteland]

I'd be surprised if they were allowed to supply their own egg. My guess is that they are handed an egg just before they get to throw their contraption out the window.

Noedar, it would really help if you clarified a few of the rules mentioned above. Specifically for me, does the egg shell have to actually be touching the ground when all is said and done, or does you apparatus simply have to hit the ground without breaking the egg?

 

[WinkOsmosis]

The egg will break, or at least crack if the egg itself has to hit the ground.

 

[lukatmyshu]

In our high school the grading scheme was that your grade was the height-dropped from / thickness of your contraption minus some fixed constant if it broke ... so what one guy did was turn in a sheet of paper. The egg broke but when you have large #/almost infinitely small sheet of paper .... he got an A. But I agree with the rest of the forum .. post us the EXACT rules ... most high schools make you do this kind of a thing so chances are SOMEONE here can pont you in the right direction.

 

[richardycc]

you can put the egg in a net or something and than tie the net to the just the right number of helium ballons so that egg can land slowly and safely on the ground.
you need to do a lot of try and error run before hand so you can pull this one off. The setup can be tricky. For extra brownie point, give the teacher and all your classmates the ballons afterward.

 

[xirtam]

Originally posted by: richardycc
you can put the egg in a net or something and than tie the net to the just the right number of helium ballons so that egg can land slowly and safely on the ground.
you need to do a lot of try and error run before hand so you can pull this one off. The setup can be tricky. For extra brownie point, give the teacher and all your classmates the ballons afterward.

The only time I've seen it tried, it failed. If you do do it, though, it would look pretty spectacular. Overkill, in my opinion.

 

[Ameesh]

Originally posted by: WinkOsmosis
The egg will break, or at least crack if the egg itself has to hit the ground.

sounds like youre a quitter!

 

[Marshallj]

Surely there must be size constraints.

Because what's to stop you from putting the egg in a refrigerator box filled with cushions and dropping it?

Or what's stopping you from putting it inside one of those air filled packing bags places inside a giant helium filled bag? You could make it almost weightless then.

 

[SagaLore]

Did this in eighth grade. Here was the winning contraption (not mine):

1. Get small coffee can
2. Fill can almost half full of sand
3. Place egg onto sand
4. Fill the rest of the can with sand to the brim
5. Drop can

And the egg will stay intact. The winner that did this was able to drop it about a dozen more times before the eggshell started to produce stress factures.

 

[Moonbeam]

How is an egg in a can of sand touching the ground?

 

[pyonir]

shouldn't the thread title be: "Do my homework for me!"