Egg Drop Experiment

Today my summer camp students finished their egg drop experiments.  If you've never done this before it is an excellent activity for kids of most ages.  I say most ages because I think I will wait another year or two before doing this with my daughter.  Some skill in building using popsicle sticks is required.  I've done this experiment with kids as young as 2nd grade and as old as seniors in high school.

So what's the egg drop experiment?  The basic idea is that you have select materials to build a "ship" that will house an egg (regular, not hard boiled).  Once the ship is built and the egg in place, you drop the ship from increasing heights until the egg breaks.  The goal is to go as high as possible before breaking the egg or better yet, not break the egg at all.

There are a number of websites that discuss the egg drop experiment, all with different materials.  My students this week were allowed to use the following and only the following materials:

15 cotton balls
23 popsicle sticks
6 straws
6 rubber bands
6 paper clips
7 pipe cleaners
2 feet of string
1 plastic grocery bag
1 bottle of basic glue.

Here are their "ships".

After letting the glue dry for a day we headed out to a nearby parking garage and dropped them from a few feet.  All eggs survived the first drop.  After dropping from the second floor, 4 of the 8 eggs survived.  2 eggs survived the 3rd and 4th floor drop.  1 egg survived the drop from the fourth floor onto rocks.  This same egg survived the upside down drop and the throw down drop.  Which ship was this?  In the last picture on the right with the green pipe cleaners is the ship that protected its egg on all drops.

The kids today had a blast and so will your kids.  If you have older kids, make it more challenging by limiting their supplies.  For my high school students I take away the grocery bag (so no parachute), a few cotton balls, and a a few popsicle sticks.

So if you and your kids are bored sometime, give this experiment a try.  It will definitely entertain.