Egg Drop
by Patrice P.
In my 9th grade physics class we are learning about momentum. To apply momentum to real life my class did an egg drop project. What we did was make an egg case and drop it from some bleachers at school. Sounds easy right? The whole point was to make a case so that the egg would NOT break. If you want to find out if my egg broke or not or how my case was made just ahead and scroll down. Guarantee you learn something new ! !
Description of egg case
My egg case was made out of a shoe box, tape and carpet padding. I made the shoe box smaller and put two pieces of carpet padding at the bottom. After that I glued another two pieces of the carpet padding to the inside of the box so that the egg would be able to move. To make sure that the egg would stay in place I cut a whole in the middle of the padding and stuck the egg in. Just to be sure that the egg would not pop out of the case I put a lid on it and taped it shut.
What is momentum?
Why did the egg cases have approximately the change in momentum when they hit theground?
Momentum is the mass of an object multiplied by its velocity or moving mass. To find‚momentum you use the formula p=mv (p standing for momentum, m standing for mass and vstanding for velocity).
The reason that the egg cases have the same change in momentum is because they have the same mass and velocity. If they had different masses then they would hit at the all different times. Since mass and velocity are directly proportional the same would happen if the velocity was increased.
What is impulse?
Why did all of the egg cases have approximately the same impulse?
Impulse is the product of force and time interval during which a force acts. Impulse can change momentum. The way that impulse can change momentum is if you apply a force to an object then it accelerates or decreases and therefore the momentum changes. The one thing to remember is that impulse does NOT equal momentum it is directly proportional to it.
The reason that the egg cases had the same impulse is because they all had the same momentum. All of the requirements were meet, there for all of the egg cases had the same impulse.
If all of the egg cases had the same impulse, what varied with each egg case? Why?
If all of the egg cases had the same impulse then the materials and design would change. If the materials and design changed the momentum and velocity would change because they would be made with all different types of things.
Did your egg break? Why?
As you can clearly see my egg broke. The reason that my egg broke is because it did not have enough room to bounce around in the egg case. To improve my design I would take some of the padding out of the case and I would take the padding off of the bottom because it did nothing. I would also preform more trails.
How could you use what you learned form this activity in real world situations.
I can compare this activity to 3 real life situations, boxing, air bags, and carpets.
In boxing the laws of momentum are used by the boxer riding with the punch therefore the time increases and the force decreases. If the boxer was to run into the punch guarantee that because the time of impact was shortened then the force of the punch was great. That is why boxers learn to "ride" the punch not run into it.
Why are air bags used int car? When a car gets into a car crash and there is enough force exerted in the car the air bags deploy. Air bags were made to increase the time of impact so that the force of car would not be greater on the passenger. If there was no air bags in a car then there would be nothing to increase the time of impact and the force would be greater.
Have you ever wondered why there are so many different types of carpet padding? Well the answer is because usually the more expensive the carpet padding is then the more cushion it has. What does this have to do with momentum, you ask? The carpet padding helps to increase the time at which the foot hits the floor so the force is decreased and you feel no pain.