In a creative display of physics and teamwork, the physics students at Bowie High School took on the challenge of creating a structure for an egg to make a two-story drop without cracking.
Students spend the first half of class getting into teams to brainstorm, design, and create a secure structure to place an egg inside of.
Senior Havia Goulding participated with her team to create a parachute style contraption to softly land from the upstairs hallway.
“I had a lot of fun with my team making our egg cage,” Goulding said. “I was pretty nervous that the egg was going to break but I’m glad our first idea worked because we would not have had time to come up with a new idea.”
The challenge may seem easy, but limited time and materials add more difficulty to the challenge.
“The hardest part was definitely working within 30 minutes and also not really having the ability to test if our parachute will work or not,” Goulding said.
The majority of the grade is for the egg to not break after the drop, but another grade is taken based on the design of the structure. Goulding and her teammates added last minute designs to bring the assignment altogether.
“I just drew a lot on the sides to make the box look better and less plain,” Goulding said.
Goulding and her teammates used papers to create padding for the egg and a parachute to soften the landing of the box.
“We came up with our idea pretty quickly and we found the materials easily,” Goulding said. “ I think the best part was making a cushion in the box and that was probably what really kept the egg from breaking.”
Many other groups were successful and their egg had survived the fall. Junior Bagel Driscoll worked with her team to create something simple to secure an egg quickly.
“A lot of it wasn’t too bad because one of our teammates prepped us and thought of our contraption beforehand so that was kind of easy,” Driscoll said.
A difficult aspect to the egg drop challenge is finding materials to create a strong enough container to take a big drop. Driscoll and her teammates took advantage of used cardboard in their construction.
“We just used a regular cardboard box and used those cardboard toilet paper rolls to protect the box from impact and absorb the shock so, when we dropped it, the egg wouldn’t take any damage,” Driscoll said.
Recycling cardboard was a common theme for multiple teams because it is very accessible around classrooms. Junior Caden Beard and his teammates had strong ideas that created a smooth experience in construction.
“It was pretty easy and there was not too much of a challenge,” Beard said. “We focused on the stability of the contraption the most, so we went with a really easy design.”
After teams test their design and drop the egg, they are required to create equations for velocity depending on their results.
“The equations were a lot easier to do since our egg didn’t break,” Goulding said. “Knowing that the equations are a part of the grade, it added extra pressure even after having to make an egg contraption in a short amount of time.”
Beard and his team had ease with the equations, but a hiccup in finding the right materials in enough time. Since multiple teams are using similar materials, it can be difficult for teams to find what they need and still have an original idea.
“The equations were not that bad at all, but it took us a while to find what we needed to make a parachute,” Beard said. “We had our simple box design figured out, but we couldn’t do anything to make a parachute until we found papers.”
Goulding expressed that all teams found success in the well rounded assignment that challenged the creative minds of students with physics, math, and limited time.
“I learned a lot from this assignment and enjoyed being able to be creative and also have fun,” Goulding said. “I hope this assignment should continue on in the future because I think it’s a really good lesson.”
