Egg Drop Project

This egg drop experiment forced me to think and develop a design that I felt confident with. I developed several models and tested them numerous times, but could not settle on one. Eventually, I was able to put an addition onto one of my designs which gave me confidence in its ability to protect that precious egg. I will explain why my design worked so well in respect to impulse, air resistance, and stability. First, I will discuss impulse. Impulse is a force acting briefly on a body and producing a finite change of momentum. My design experienced this when it hit the ground. It does not matter how long force is on the object, it causes the same acceleration. To account for this, I made sure that my egg was suspended above the ground a decent distance. My design had several different legs that would prevent most of the force of hitting the ground from reaching the egg. These legs absorbed the forces and since they ran diagonally across the egg, the force was never pushed directly at the egg, but it ran past the egg. I also added a second pyramid underneath my egg. This was in case the legs could not handle the force of landing and decided to bend. This would cause the egg, although still nestled safely in it’s compartment, to hit the ground and break. The pyramid was used to absorb the remain amounts of force that the legs failed to.
My model was not designed to take advantage of air resistance, but it still played a part in keeping my egg safe. I had many straws sticking out in different directions. These straws were relatively thick and as my model traveled down, it was combated by air resistance. This air resistance was working in the opposite direction that it was falling in an attempt to stop it from falling. My model’s surface area was not especially large so air resistance did not play as large of a role as it would have on Thomas’ design. He had a large surface area which contributed greatly to preserving his