Egg Drop – Make: Video Podcast

This weekend, you can learn a few strategies for keeping an egg safe when thrown off a 4 story building. In addition, Paula Kieko breaks down the math and physics for you so you can calculate exactly how fast your egg is going at impact. If you want to have fun and get smarter, organize an egg drop in your neighborhood!

Egg Drop

Here’s an mp4 that plays on pretty much everything. Here’s a 3gp and 3g2 for people who like to watch on their phone! Of course if you subscribe in itunes, the videos and accompanying pdf get downloaded automatically for you, no muss no fuss. You can browse all the Make: videos on blip.tv or on the weekend projects page at your leisure! – Subscribe Link

Here’s the photoset that goes with this podcast too! – Link

Made a egg-saving-contraption? Upload a pic to the make flickr pool! – Link

Note: I’m still building the giant crossbow for Ignite Seattle on Tuesday! I’ll have pics when I’m done.

54 thoughts on “Egg Drop – Make: Video Podcast

  1. jbuell says:

    The mp4 isn’t working.

  2. jbuell says:

    The mp4 isn’t working.

  3. Nohbudy says:

    I suggest for a rule on egg drops, is that 70% of the contraption should be assembled by hand. Packing peanuts work–however it is somewhat cheating, as they are exactly designed to reduce shock. The spinny Popsicle stick thing was cool, and creative.

  4. simplebot says:

    We did this in design class in art school, and were only allowed to use one sheet of poster board (tag board). No glue, tape or anything else. We didn’t drop it from quite as high though,40 feet or so on to concrete, but it had to survive the drop three times.

    Building something to handle being launched from a big slingshot it quite a bit different than just dropping it though.

  5. trebuchet03 says:

    Another fun game/experiment — we did this in my college measurements class (the professor was done and wanted to hold a competition with 180 students) :P

    Teams of 5 or so
    Each team gets:
    1 balloon
    A stack of paper
    1 scale
    A roll of cello tape

    And you’re allowed to use a calculator.

    We had to go up to a table, measure the lift of our balloon and and measure the weight of 1 sheet of paper.

    We then had to take ONLY the stack of papers back to our seats and make a counterweight for the balloon that allowed it to rise as slow as possible.

    Then, one member had to bring the weight to the balloon and attach it. S/he was not allowed to test if the balloon was too heavy or too light (and then make adjustments) — the last balloon to hit the ceiling wins.

    —-
    Technically, our team won. But it went so slow that the professor never even saw it in the corner of the lecture hall (we were on the end). But that’s fine, we got third place(which happens to be when he saw the balloon) :P It was a fun break from the normal 730am class :P

  6. samurai1200 says:

    LOL, of COURSE peanut butter wouldn’t work. Since peanut butter is dense, the moment of impact would be shorter (than something less dense), meaning more force toward/through the egg in a shorter amount of time. A tub of butter would have worked (marginally) better than PB.

  7. j_wiz says:

    Would an egg suspended in a non-Newtonian fluid, like corn starch and water, survive if it’s held in the center of the container the same size as the peanut butter?

  8. Bre says:

    j_wiz, there’s only one way to find out!

  9. lazergir1 says:

    Ha! We totally did this at Camp for YEARS!
    It was the big end of summer blowout!

    Me & My sis always put the competition to shame…
    We would wrap ours in BubbleWrap to about the size of a basketball!

    Then watched it bounce at the bottom.
    Perfect egg landing every time!

  10. russingram says:

    to drop an egg 4 stories without breaking, I would climb to the top of a 5-story building! ;)

  11. unangst says:

    Styrofoam = cheating…

    Keep it simple:
    Same height.
    Scissors, paper and tape.
    A scale.
    Two attempts.
    Lightest successful drop wins.

    The winner is usually the person who tapes a small cone to the bottom of the egg and a ‘tail’ on the other end. The cone is destroyed, but the egg survives.

  12. ej00807 says:

    ah freeze it in a block of ice. or maybe pack it in marshmellos. mmm marshmello

  13. stephthegeek says:

    Thanks for making good use of my photo! I feel strangely proud :)

    http://www.stephthegeek.com/node/6141

  14. Bre says:

    You should do! That contraption photo is awesome!

  15. orrin says:

    I did this for a 6th grade engineering project. I used 9 egg cartons stacked 3 high and 3 wide with the egg in the center one, wrapped it with duct tape and it worked like a charm. We even had width, height, depth, and weight constraints and I just made it under those.

    It was fun, the whole class was out in front of the school building while an adult was on the root and dropped them.

  16. tuant says:

    2 easy ways: use a lot of helium baloons, or a nice parachute

  17. mcdrums8706 says:

    I’ve got a more interesting idea…

    Don’t drop the egg from so high, but the competition isn’t to make the egg survive, but for it to roll out of the egg drop box.

    The egg that rolls the farthest wins!

    Not so easy, is it?

  18. captain_andrey says:

    We had the same project as an assignment in 6th form in school. As always I was never prepared and only started 2 hours before class. I found a 2L ice cream container, filled it with water, put the egg in the water, closed the lid and taped it up for more security. Did some test with mixed success. Later I added some salt to water to make the egg more buoyant, worked every time. Scared the hell out of both the teacher and the classmates.

  19. III-lavoisier says:

    . .i’ve already make this activity with my classmates,. this is one of our activitie in physics. the materials needed is, 1 sheet of newspaper,1 raw egg, 1meter yarn,paste and tape. cut the newspaper into two, take the other half and form it into a cone (about 8-10cm high).mAKe sure the egg may suit to the cone.then, take the other half and make it a parachute. place a paste inside the cone (the greater amount,the better). then place the egg inside the cone (above the liquid paste). the stick it with tape so that it will not remove when it land in the ground. connect the cone and the parachute with the use of yarn. then,tadaaah! i asure you, it would work!!

  20. Alli says:

    This is really cool, i like how you explained everything really well. Good work, and keep making the videos!

    P.s. This worked well for me by the way, and the penut butter did the same thing for my experiment.

  21. runescape says:

    im infor a science project

  22. fran says:

    what is the fabric you used for the middle of the wheel? looks like a knee high ?

  23. Me says:

    What’s that stuff you use in the middle of the wheel?? I really, really have to know!!!:D

  24. Anonymous says:

    cool thanks u helped me on my project ill get a hundred

  25. Anonymous says:

    cool thanks u helped me on my project ill get a hundred

  26. Anonymous says:

    cool ill get a hundred on my project thanks for the idea slash project

  27. Anonymous says:

    cool ill get a hundred on my project thanks for the idea slash project

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