MacGregor's teacher, Mr. B, does this experiment with his classes each year. The idea is to design and create a container that you can put an egg inside and when dropped 15 feet onto the pavement, the egg remains whole. He encourages all the kids to be creative and he gave us many ideas from the past. However, he wouldn't tell you if the inventions from the past worked or not. Some of his ideas included - the parachute egg, inside a nerf ball, in jello, or noodles.
So 2 weeks ago we all trying to come up with ideas. Dan wanted to go buy stuff, like mattress foam, or nerf balls. I did NOT want to spend $20 dollars on this one day project and thought there had to be something at home that would work. The teacher said, it's not a pass or fail - It's an experiment to see what works and what doesn't.
I was thinking of those bags of air they put in boxes being shipped. My mom brought a few over and a neighbor had some more. So we tried it at home. We took a set of 3 connected air bags and placed an egg inside and took some packing tape and taped it all around. We threw it up to the ceiling and let it drop and the egg cracked open. The egg had fallen on a flat spot where the air pillows connect. So we got a gladware container and separated all the air pillows. We then packed air pillows all around, put the egg inside and more air pillows on top and taped the lid on. We tested it 3 times. Once from our kitchen ceiling - it worked! Once from the top of our stairs - it worked! Then we threw it up to the ceiling of our 2 story foyer and it fell on the hardwood floor below - it cracked! So we didn't know what would happen the next day. Mr. B brings the eggs and they have to put in at school the morning of the competition. So we got all our air pillows set and hoped it was going to work.
For the answer - follow the picture sequence of events.
Yeah!!! It worked. There were only about 3 whose did not work. But I fear we were all a bit too practical using bubble wrap, cardboard boxes, foam, suspension with pantyhose, pillows etc.. It would have probably been more fun to see the eggs dropped in containers with jello, noodles, mashed potatoes, scrambled eggs, cotton candy etc...
So 2 weeks ago we all trying to come up with ideas. Dan wanted to go buy stuff, like mattress foam, or nerf balls. I did NOT want to spend $20 dollars on this one day project and thought there had to be something at home that would work. The teacher said, it's not a pass or fail - It's an experiment to see what works and what doesn't.
I was thinking of those bags of air they put in boxes being shipped. My mom brought a few over and a neighbor had some more. So we tried it at home. We took a set of 3 connected air bags and placed an egg inside and took some packing tape and taped it all around. We threw it up to the ceiling and let it drop and the egg cracked open. The egg had fallen on a flat spot where the air pillows connect. So we got a gladware container and separated all the air pillows. We then packed air pillows all around, put the egg inside and more air pillows on top and taped the lid on. We tested it 3 times. Once from our kitchen ceiling - it worked! Once from the top of our stairs - it worked! Then we threw it up to the ceiling of our 2 story foyer and it fell on the hardwood floor below - it cracked! So we didn't know what would happen the next day. Mr. B brings the eggs and they have to put in at school the morning of the competition. So we got all our air pillows set and hoped it was going to work.
For the answer - follow the picture sequence of events.
Yeah!!! It worked. There were only about 3 whose did not work. But I fear we were all a bit too practical using bubble wrap, cardboard boxes, foam, suspension with pantyhose, pillows etc.. It would have probably been more fun to see the eggs dropped in containers with jello, noodles, mashed potatoes, scrambled eggs, cotton candy etc... 
Here is Maco with his best 1st grade bud - Timmy A.
6 comments:
Congratulations MacGregor! We had a contest like that in my physics class in HIGH SCHOOL, and my egg didn't fare nearly so well!
Great job MacGregor! That sounds like a fun project - it would be neat to see the different ideas people had.
We did that in my eighth grade science class (the one I taught). The kids had a great time! Congrats on saving your egg, Maco!
What if your egg dropped and itr broke and it splattered yoke all over?
Fun fun project! That would be fun to watch.
If the egg broke then we all had to say "Oh Fiddle Faddle"! Then they were allowed to rewrap it and got to try it one more time. If it still broke, that was OK.
Post a Comment