Egg Lander

 

Dropping eggs off a two storey high building may sound like a lot of fun, but when it has to be dropped without any cracks, well, this becomes a whole new story.

 Our design

The design we came up with consisted of a tetrahedral elevated over a large, sturdy square base. This was an excellent idea because when the lander is dropped, the air would just pass through the base, and when landing, the large base will take the impact leaving the egg intact. The idea of the pyramid was to cover the egg from all four sides, and we even placed the egg in a capsule and stuffed it with tiny straws; making sure the egg was secure. With all these ideas that seemed so practical, we were sure that the egg lander would work…but we were wrong.

Results

A split second after Eric threw the egg, everyone knew something was incorrect. For one, the entire structure had turned upside down. This was a serious issue because we had intended for it to land on the base, but now the structure was going to land “egg first”, splat, onto the cement below. Another reason why this action basically declared the egg as a goner is because we never placed a lid on our capsule that the egg sat in. This is because we never had thought that the structure would turn around.

Now, the big question that resides is: why? Why did our challenge go horribly wrong? Well I believe there are three possible reasons for that. First of all, the impact was much greater than anyone expected. We miscalculated how fast the egg would accelerate and how strong the impact would actually be because even though we had extra straws left over we did not use them. Those straws could have been used to save the egg (and our dignity) by allowing it to share the shock factor and adding weight to the bottom. Secondly, the placement of the egg was completely wrong. In the structure, we placed the egg towards the middle of the tetrahedral. By doing this, we did not realize how much weight we had added to the top of the structure, which caused it to turn the opposite direction. Lastly, a flaw in the design led to the destruction of the egg. For example, when making the elevated pyramid, we attached the top point by simply taping the ends together. We had forgotten the physics behind the structure because if we had made the top point longer, the impact would have been distributed among the straws and the egg would obtain less of a disturbance. Furthermore, we needed to better protect the sides if our tetrahedral in order to minimize the shock factor.

Changes and Modifications

For a better and more successful egg dropper, I would make three substantial changes. The first one would be that I would adjust the top point of the pyramid and make it longer. This would decrease the shock factor and the egg could have a better chance of surviving. Secondly, I would attach the egg itself lower into the structure. I would change it so that the egg is at the bottom of the pyramid to the middle of the base structure. This would ensure that the structure does not flip over as most of the weight would be at the bottom. Lastly, I would add further support and protection to the base of the structure. Adding more weight to the bottom and ensuring the straws share the impact and not the egg.