The Great Egg Drop

How would you keep an egg from breaking if you were to drop it from the top of the jungle gym? That was the question put to the 6th grade Science class. Each egg was to be packaged in a covered Styrofoam cup. The packing material was left up to the design teams, who proposed designs involving material such as peanut butter, popcorn, Jell-o, pudding, toothpaste, foil, shredded paper, cotton balls, ice, and , of course, more Styrofoam. A few of the teams added elements, such as propellers, to the outside of the cup. Prototypes were built, weighed, and taken out into the play lot where the test was conducted. Surprisingly (at least to Mrs. Shutt), 8 out of 12 of the egg packages survived the fall. The class then analyzed the results, looking for patterns that would give the students insight into why certain packing materials worked while others did not. To finish the design cycle, each student wrote a design report that included design sketches, data tables, and a discussion of the results of the test.