Science Club participants took part in an ‘eggs-tra’ fun activity this week- the ‘Egg Drop’.
Each of the students were given a hen’s egg and tasked with constructing a container that would protect it from a 15m drop.
The students were given a wide selection of materials including cardboard, bubble wrap, tissue paper, rubber sheeting and plastic sheeting. Imagination is the key to success in this activity, thinking up what can you add to make sure that your egg will survive an impact with a hard surface. Wings, parachutes, and cushioned container interiors all featured in the egg carriers created by our students.
Although very fun, this experiment aims to highlight the relationships between force and momentum – the aim being to minimize the force experienced by the egg upon impact. To do this, the students had to either decrease its velocity by slowing the egg down (e.g. by adding a parachute) or increase the time over which the egg comes to rest (e.g. cushioning the egg to absorb some of the force).
After a 30 minute construction window, the students were ushered to one of the highest windows in school, found in the Science corridor. One by one, each egg was then gently dropped over the edge of the window ledge and left to fall to the tarmac below. All of our young scientists managed to build containers that enabled their eggs to survive the drop without a scratch, so we thought it only fitting that we try a prototype build and a couple of ‘control’ drops of un-protected eggs too!
