We challenge you to an ’Egg Drop Challenge’!
Posted by Science Oxford on November 16, 2009 | comments
Fancy a bit of fun for the weekend?
Here at Science Oxford we run various schools outreach shows and workshops. One particular workshop is our ‘egg drop challenge’. In egg drop challenge students explore the forces of gravity and air resistance as they work in teams to see if they can use a range of simple materials to protect a raw egg when dropped from a height of over 3m.
We challenge you to have a go and let us know how you get on? More details are below:
Our preferred Method:
What you’ll need:
- A plastic bag or light material
- Scissors
- String
- An Egg (perhaps a few!)
Instructions:
- Cut out a large square from your plastic bag or material.
- Trim the edges so it looks like an octagon (an eight sided shape).
- Cut a small whole near the edge of each side.
- Attach 8 pieces of string of the same length to each of the holes.
- Tie the pieces of string to the object you are using as a weight.
- Use a chair or find a high spot to drop your parachute and test how well it worked, remember that you want it to drop as slow as possible.
What’s happening?
Hopefully your parachute will descend slowly to the ground, giving your egg a comfortable landing. When you release the parachute the egg pulls down on the strings and opens up a large surface area of material that uses air resistance to slow it down. The larger the surface area the more air resistance and the slower the parachute will drop.
Cutting a small hole in the middle of the parachute will allow air to slowly pass through it rather than spilling out over one side, this should help the parachute fall straighter.
Some more inspiration:
What do you think?