Egg Project

[Vile_DR]

Vile, do you have AIM?

dk

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sry...I haven't used that since my JR High days some several years ago...I don't trust the amount of ports it opens...and my firewall is the like the energizer bunny when something hits it...(keeps going, and going, and going...) But the messager on myspace.com is great...it sends an email alert, although it is an impartial email itself, and i'll be able to kick a message back to you when I become available...

Edited September 23, 2005 by Vile_DR

[Brian_Holiday]

Hi everyone,

At school, I need to do a project where we take a raw egg, and make a contraption out of hot glue and toothpicks. It can't be over 70g.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Have you dropped it yet? I would like to hear what design you chose and how it worked out.

BH

[Honda_Boy]

mine bout 2 years ago, dug a hole inside a foam flower holder (for those fake flowers for graves) and attached a make shift parachute and threw from about 2 stories up and it didn't break. i used a jumbo egg i think.

[Chappy]

The physics of this is rather simple, to dissipate the energy the egg gathers during the fall.

Just as cars (expecially race cars) these days dissipate energy, they literally fly to pieces...

As the pieces leave the vehicle, the energy is dissipated thru them. With the carbon fibre race cars in F1, the closer you can get to making the carbon fiber turn to dust in a crash, the more energy is lost thru it.

So, the ultimate form this "cradle" should make, is one that will absorb the initial impact, and shed pieces of the cradle as it continues through the impact zone. This way, the energy will be shed along with the toothpicks, and when the egg finally impacts the floor, the impact will have been softened enough to leave the egg intact.

The trick to this one will be to find out how many toothpicks need to be sacrificed, to slow the egg to the point where the rest of the fall is not enough to break the shell, and how to make sure the trajectory of the egg stays in line with the sacrificial toothpicks.

If the egg tends to fall to the side before the needed ampount of energy is dissipated, the project will fail, so the entire structure needs to crush in a straight pattern, keeping the egg's trajectory in a straight line.

I would design an initial cradle in which the egg rests, and build a crush structure around it. If you can weight it so that it will fall in a straight line, then the crush structure doesn't need to completely surround the egg, and you can concentrate the maximum number of toothpicks to this area.

Problem is, that the egg will weigh more than the toothpicks, and will want to turn around in flight so that the egg hits first...here is the killer.

So, it may make the most sense to build a roundish type structure, with the egg cradled in the center. The real key here is still that, on impact, as mass leaves the structure, it takes/dissipates energy with it.

A good design would be one that uses both crumple zones and zones where the structure breaks away, taking energy with it.

[Dan]

Interesting Chappy....I am almost done building my first try one, and I'll post a pic soon,and I will use both of your ideas.

dk

[Chappy]

Well...I guess that degree in structural engineering, and 3 years of physics, have come in handy for something eh....

It would certainly be easier if you could control the direction the egg will take on initial impact, but that's very difficult to do, so the design should be spherical. Unfortunately, that wastes weight with areas that aren't directly used to expell energy.

Another thought is to make a platform in a tubular fashion, with a wide heavier base. Putting the egg on the top and having it break thru different layers of breakaway toothpicks. As the structure hits the floor on the large end, the egg falls thru the center of the structure, striking levels of easily breakaway toothpicks, that shed energy by breaking apart.

Falling thru 4 or 5 of these levels, the egg should be sufficiently slowed as not to break.

[Dan]

Yeah...I was planning on just attaching random toothpicks in places, not reallly tightly, so that they fall off.