Before we began building, we learned about the basics of how cars protect the drivers by extending the period of impact and reducing the amount of force. We also learned about how airbags work, working against the inertia of the driver stopping them from moving forward. The goal is to learn how cars work to protect people, and how laws of physics apply to it.
For my project I took a long piece of pipe insulation foam, and cut it into pieces forming a larger hollow tube, with room to hold the egg in the center. We then filled the center with cotton to further absorb the force of the impact. Our design turned out to be very successful, withstanding drops from 36 feet.
We received positive feedback on the first challenge when given limited supplies, and we learned that we need a good way to hold the egg in place, so it will not fall out and break.
Some of the technological resources we used were as follows: capital, people, tools and most importantly time. For capital, money was used to purchase the foam insulation, and people as in me and my partner Enrico. As for tools I only use very basic things such as a pair of scissors and a razor blade. For time we had around 2 weeks to research, design and build.
My biggest challenge was trying to design the best possible Egg Drop Protection system that we could, and figure out what kind of materials we could use. We needed 2 types of foam or soft marterials, 1 that could hold it form and take a lot of blows, and another type that was soft and could be use to fill the device acting as a kind of pillow for the egg.
From this project I learned a lot more then just trying to protect an egg from falling a few feet. I also learned how car protection systems work, such as airbags and crumble zones work by spreading the force of impact over a long period of time. We also learned more about the basic laws of physics, and how they applied to car crashes such as inertia and the force of the driver moving forward in a crash.
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