How can I drop an egg with 2 pieces of paper and 1meter of tape, without it breakin? Thanks peoples?

Question

My partner and I need to do this egg drop from 2 meters off the ground and we are looknig for ideas on how to do this. If you have any ideas/suggestion..let me know.

Answer 1

When I did this assignment (years ago) I was given the restriction that the paper and tape could only be used to make a landing pad of some sort, not as a yo-yo.

The parachute idea will probably not work - there just won't be enough surface area in the paper to slow the egg enough to keep it from breaking on impact.

You need a system to adjust the average force exerted. From Newton's second law: F=ma where F is force, m is mass and a is acceleration
since a=(change in v)/(change in t) where v is velocity and t is time
average F=m*(change in v)/(change in t)

Since the mass of the egg is fixed and you can't alter the change in velocity (speed of falling egg to zero) you must adjust the length of time of the impact.

When I did this I built a "basket" out of one sheet of paper. I folded it origami style to conserve tape. I basically folded the edges of the sheet of paper up so when the egg landed it would not roll out. I tried to make as large a "catching surface" as possible - incase my aim was off a little.

Then I took the other sheet of paper and made "legs" to go under the basket. I did this by coiling strips of paper, but folding them into a square would probably work just as well, and be easier to attach. I made 4 "tall" ones -one for each corner, then a few that were a little shorter to put closer to the center, and one more that was shorter still for the center. I taped these legs to the bottom of the basket. When I dropped the egg into the basket the center sagged until the short center leg touched the floor. Since it was paper the leg could still absorb even more of the impact.

I was able to drop my egg from nearly 3m without it breaking. I think I could have survived a higher drop - but the ceiling prevented me from testing that theory.


basket --> [___________]
legs ----> __|__I__'__I__|__
floor

This is the best schematic I can manage with the text characters.

Hope you're getting some good ideas!

Answer 2

Thats a good question... and they give you very limited resources.

The Parachute idea above is good, but I wonder about the time of deployment. 6 feet is does not give you a lot of time for the paper to gather the resistance. But you will need to experiment to find out.

Here is my thought

Assumptions on things you didn't say:
> the egg size is standardized... (you can't use a tiny egg like from a sparrow or such which would reduce the weight )

> The egg is raw... you can not hard boil or freeze it.

> There are no restrictions about the landing area.

> The egg must free fall but there is no restrictions on the paper

OK. with that here we go...

1) Cut one sheet of the paper into strips about 1/2" wide .
2) With a sheet of standard 8.5 x 11" paper you should get about 5 meters of paper strips. Tape the ends together to create a single strip.
3) with the remaining tape and sheet devise a tray or similar carriage for the egg with a loop to support it.
4) With some practice, you and your partner hold the strip in a U shaped form while one drops the egg and carriage. The egg will slide along the u and decelerate as the slope of the curve decreases.
5) At some point near the ground you simply release the strip and the egg will fall. You wil have to practice a few times to learn when, but an egg will likely stand a 6" drop... At that point the egg should be moving laterally as well as falling...its kinetic energy will simply keep it rolling to a stop and not impacting .

This will take some practice but it should work.

Another alternate is to wrap the egg up like a yo-yo with that strip

Use small strips of the remaing tape to make the 'yo yo' string sticky so that it will retard the unwinding. You can also tape the leftover paper to the ends of the egg to create a fan to also retard the fall.. This will work too but you will need to practice it to get the right sized tape on the string (too much and the string will break.. too little and it will not work)

good luck...

.

Answer 3

Try this...
take an inch off both sheet of paper.
tape the 2 sheets of paper together to make a parachute. split the tape in half and use them as ropes, attach to egg and paper.
Try to make the parachute as air resistant as possible.(increase surface area with what ever tape that is left over, you may want to make a few holes in the sheets themselves to control the decent)
now that you know the egg will only strike the ground from one possible side, pad that side with the 2 strips of paper you've cut.
use one strip to make a small box, crumble the other strip and make this the filling and put that into the box. tape the box to the impact side of the egg.

best of luck

Answer 4

You can take one piece of paper and make small paper balls to serve as buffer, and enclose the egg and the balls in the other paper, and use the tape to put it together.

Answer 5

first boil the egg and leave the shell on then put the newspaper on but not too tight then cut the string in half and wrap the 1.5 meters around the news paper to where it will hold and tie the ends of it then take the straws and put the other half of string through them tie the ends of the straw to the other string and at the top of the straws (i hope u understand) the straws and extra string will look cool