What materials absorb energy well?

Question

I am doing an egg drop project for school and I have most of my design built.
I just wanted to know some suggestions of materials that absorb energy well-besides bubble wrap.
No effence but I think everyone in my class is using bubblewrap and I only want to use it as a last resort.
I am brain freezing and I can't think of any.
Please help.

Answer 1

Peanut butter in a jar. Just stick the egg inside the peanut butter in the jar. It won't go anywhere, much like peanut butter goes no where. My wife did that one. I just put two pillows in a trash bag with the egg between the pillows. It's less messy. My whole thing kinda floated down with less impact. Hers dropped like a bomb, and chipped a piece of the jar off, but the egg was in tact.

Answer 2

I participated in this experiment in school and saw several different ways to do this one. I used peanut butter in a plastic jar. It worked perfect. I also saw the straws idea, the Styrofoam idea, and another that I would question would be the spray foam insulation. They took a small box and put a light layer of foam in it and laid the egg in and then another layer on top. Let it dry and then drop it. Some worked and some didn't. I believe what ever you choose to do make sure you take your time and have perfect craftsmanship . That is a big key to the problem.

Answer 3

Well think of why bubble wrap is good at absorbing energy. What's in those pockets that it has?

You guessed it, air.

So those pockets are bubbles of air. Anything that has a lot of air in it is lighter and usually more fragile if it's a hard material or softer if it's a soft material.

So something like metal is a hard material and lacks any air, so it's heavy.

So what else can you think of that is light and soft and has little pockets of air. The pockets actually I think are better if they are not enclosed like in bubble wrap, because then the air can escape, and it works like tiny tiny mini airbags. Airbags can't be enclosed or they'd turn into a wall for your face, instead they fill up a compressed gas, but when you hit them the gas is allowed to escape to cushion your landing.

So I say look into fabrics, fleece comes to mind, think of it if you magnified it, the fabric will have tons of little air pockets, which is actually what keeps you warm in fleece and such materials in winter.

So yeah try looking at winter gear for alternative ideas.

If all else fails you can use airbags. I'm using this as a bit of a joke, but if you think about it, there's something else that fills with air that you may be able to use, that you inflate for parties.

Hope this helps.

Oh I did think of another one, water. If I drop something into water, the water absorbs the impact, if I drop something on to the ground for instance, like your egg, it'll just shatter. So you may be able to do something with water.

Answer 4

All components have distinctive absorption/scattering residences. What are you asking? The microwave door is a sturdy occasion. A metallic grate that reflects microwaves, yet needless to say you will discover via. with your plant occasion, it particularly is nevertheless in simple terms 'engineering', as a very large thick pile of leaves will block radio waves or X-rays. even however, in case you bypass to very low frequency, the pile of leaves will would desire to be relatively large. Take the sea, that's permeable to blue easy all the way down to 1000's of meters, yet even then, it particularly is going to truly blocks the incoming radiation. And it blocks maximum different radiation particularly properly, yet VLF radio propagates fantastically plenty. That replaced into the only thank you to speak to submarines whilst the have been submerged. in an attempt to respond to your question, you could build a clear out of distinctive components. and alter the features of the clear out base on the progression. Take consumer-friendly glass. ingredients interior the crystalline matrix take in distinctive frequencies and scatter others. for this reason, colored glass. each thing common to guy has a number of an identical residences, different than a organic vacuum.

Answer 5

When I was in high school, my contraption looked like a 3D number sign made of straw from a fast food chain. I placed the egg in the center cube, of course. It looked frail but the egg was intact after dropping the whole thing from the third floor to a cemented ground.

Answer 6

Crazy as it sounds, some people have actually surrounded the egg with peanut butter before they put it into its container.

Other ideas:

1. Popped popcorn
2. High impact foam (like they use to ship a computer)
3. Green florist foam

The key is to use light, but strong, materials.

Answer 7

You can try cotton batting, or the poly foam used in mattresses. Another suggestion is a big wad of shredded paper that comes out of a paper shredder. Another way is to use several of the sealable zip lock freezed bags, blow them up to about one or two inches abd zip them closed. After you use them for yor project, you can reuse them for storage bags. Good luch on your project.

Answer 8

you can go all out and create a shield made of balsa wood sticks. place the egg in the center and create like a tisserand around it. that shape absorbs energy the best.

Answer 9

sand:
make small balloons filled with sand and surround the egg with them. after the drop, you can empty the ballons and replace the sand with water or air for fun with friends

Answer 10

Want a NEW idea? I haven't tried this but have wanted to try... honeycomb... make it very light and airy - lots of bi-carb - it should compress and stay compressed which is what you what - no rebound etc...

If you do this and succeed, let me know... Good Luck.