Egg Drop Eggstravaganza
by, Andrew H.

In the egg drop eggstravaganza you drop a protected egg off a set of bleachers to see if you have a safe design. The purpose is to show that the force (crash) can be reduced by increasing the time of impact, causing less pain and injuries.

Description of egg case:

My egg case is a paper bag with straw/hay packed inside. The egg sat in a small container of jell-o. I also used a few cotton balls that surrounded the jell-o.

What is momentum?

Why did the egg cases have approximately the same change in momentum when they hit the ground?

Momentum is a vector quantity related to mass and velocity.

When everybody’s egg case hit the ground they all had the same velocity, 0m/s. So, all they egg cases decelerate to zero which makes the change in momentum similar.

What is impulse?

Why did all of the egg cases have approximately the same impulse?

Impulse is a product of force and time when a force is acting on an object.

Most of the egg cases had similar impulses because many things were the same. Everyone dropped their egg at the same height, with the same applied force, and with the same gravitational pull.

If all of the egg cases had the same impulse, what varied with each one?

Every egg case had different materials and structures that they used to protect the egg. So, if they all had the same impulse the only thing that differed would be the materials inside.

Did your egg break? Why?

No, it did not break because I had a good shock absorbing egg case.

Reflect on your design as a scientist or engineer would. How could you improve your design? What new design or materials would you try in the future?

One downfall to my experiment is that it can get messy. When the egg case hit the ground the jell-o case exploded causing a big mess. I could also improve my experiment by refrigerating the jell-o.

How could you use what you learned from this activity in real world situations?

Scientists who design goalie pads increase the time of impact so that the goalie is more protected. The scientist also take in account that goalies want light weight pads for lots of mobility.

Designers of cars use bumpers that increase the time of impact, which will protect passengers. The new officer bumpers cave in allowing a longer time of impact.

Scientists and designers of bullet proof vests know that increasing the time of impact can be the difference of life and death. The design is to spread out the contact of the bullet
Engineers who design shocks in a car are very important. Older cars have bad shock or even no shocks. Hypothetically if you were to drive off into a ditch the shocks would increase the time of impact causing less injury to passengers.
The science behind momentum

Momentum is directly proportional to mass and velocity. Impulse causes a change in momentum. When you increase the time of impact you decrease the force.