The egg drop.

We were told that we needed to create something for an egg to survive a three story drop. After much brainstorming, Kelsey and I decided that we must build something with many layers to protect the egg. With limited time and resources, we went digging in the recycling bins by Hoben Hall. We came up with a seven, count them, seven layer contraption to hold our egg. The egg was surrounded by cotton balls, in a cup, surrounded by plastic bags in a Kleenex box. The box was centered inside of a large box filled with balled up newspaper and plastic bags. The egg, little Robert, was not going anywhere. In the design we wanted to include a large surface area so all the impact of crashing would be less intense on the delicate egg, and layers of loose padding to allow for movement within the box.

The building of our super structures was simple, easy, and efficient. All of our supplies were free, thanks again to the recycling bins, and simple. It was a matter of putting the layers in the correct order, and poof, we have an invincible egg container!


I was not worried about testing our egg container. There was no doubt in my mind that it would not succeed with flying colors. After several successful tests, as a class we minimized our contraptions to see if we over designed our projects. Little Robert lived. We took the Kleenex box out of the big box, tossed it down three flights with no causalities. But just the cup and cotton balls proved to be too much for lil’ Bobby…