How would you safely land a spacecraft on a planet with no atmosphere if you couldn’t use rockets? A parachute wouldn’t work, since there’s no air resistance.  You’d have to design your craft with a protective shell so the impact wouldn’t destroy it.

Pretend a raw egg is your spacecraft and Voila: you have a science experiment.  Besides being lots of fun, an egg drop experiment is a great way to try your hand at engineering and is a fantastic STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) project for kids and adults alike!.

The law of motion says that the faster you change the speed of an object, the greater the force applied to the object will be.  We demonstrated this concept with our egg-throwing experiment  by smashing eggs against a table, which stopped them fast, and watching them survive being hurled against a hanging sheet, which slowed them down.  This same law explains why, if you drop an egg on the floor, it will break.  When you change the speed of the egg slowly,by suspending it or surrounding it with material that helps absorb or redirect the force, less force is applied to the egg and it may remain intact. Can you design a container to protect an egg?

Why not have a holiday egg drop competition with your out-of town cousins, or other friends and family?  Here are the rules we came up with.  (We have a no parachute rule, but if you’d really like to design a parachute for your egg, that would be fun too!)  I’m thinking an egg nogg carton might be a good place to start.

-Container made up of 100% holiday material like wrapping paper, bows, cardboard, tinsel, food, glue, toothpicks, wood, tape, plastic, Easter basket grass, candy and string. No Styrofoam, bubble wrap or packing peanuts are allowed.

-Container must contain one RAW egg.

-No Parachutes (defined as any material attached to your egg craft in such a way that it will expand outward as it falls, catching air.)

-Container should be no larger than 20 inches in any direction

-No tape or glue must touch the egg.

Drop your egg from different heights to see how well it survives.  (Make sure you’re supervised by an adult when you do your egg drop!)

You can calculate the force of gravity on your egg and container by multiplying its weight in kilograms by 9.8meters/second (the acceleration due to gravity.