National Engineer WeekMarch 5, 2001

By: Rob Milstrey & John Ngui

Intel Corp - Folsom

Egg Drop Competition

The Problem

• When launching delicate instruments to soft-land on the Moon or planets, a particular problem exists in packaging these instruments to protect them from vibration, acceleration, and deceleration during launch, re-entry, and landing.

Objective

• The objective of the Egg-Drop Competition is to design and build a device or package that will safely deliver a raw medium egg from a free height of approximately XX feet. This objective will be reached by applying the laws of motion.

Some Questions to Think About

1. Should your package be made rigid; or is it better if it collapses?

2. Should the egg be able to move, or should it be held immobile.

3.  What kinds of materials or structures will absorb the shock impact?

4.  How can it be designed to open easily to inspect the egg?

5. How can it be designed to withstand multiple drops from successively greater heights?

Materials

• 1 raw egg

• 10 Styrofoam peanuts

• 30 plastic flexible straws

• 1 m of masking tape

• plastic bubble wrap 5“ X 5 “

• scissors.

Data to be collected

• D= Distance ________________(Meters)

• T= Time_________________(Seconds)

Calculate:

• Vf = Final Velocity

• a= Acceleration due to gravity(9.8m/s/s)

• m= Mass (grams)

• F= Force (Newtons)

CalculationsTime (sec) Distance (m)

S=0.5*a*t2

Final VelocityVf= Vo + 2*a*t

Mass (grams) ForceF=m*a

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Group 4

Group 5

Group 6

Grading• Originality - Is the design unique and creative? (15pts)

• Quality - Have you worked efficiently (either alone or with your partner) to produce a device you are proud of, or was it thrown together? (10pts)

• Completeness - Have you and/or your team completed all assignments associated with the competition, and on each assignments have you achieved quality? (10pts)

• Performance - All designs that reach a height of 3m will be awarded full credit based based upon their performance score.

Scoring

• The competition will be scored using a simple mathematical equation:

SCORE = Mass of device without egg X (Time of Fall)2

Low score wins.

• The importance of this equation is that the less massive the device and the faster it falls, the better your score will be.

• Any egg that is cracked or broken after the fall, or after being removed from the device by a designer, is automatically out of the competition.