For my second egg drop device I decided to change the inside of the box. Although the balloon cushion was perfectly fine, it required a whole sheet of A4 paper with about 8cm extra. That means if I want to cushion both the top and the bottom of the box, I would need 2 sheets. The box also required 2 sheets of paper, so that left me with 4 sheets left for the outside of the device.
Round 2
This time, I tried creating 2 tubes at the top and bottom to make the box more compact and have the egg suspended. To both of the tubes, I used about half of the A4 paper and the rest was used to surround the 4 sides of the egg. I attached the tubes inside the box by cutting multiple slits on one end and then folding them out so it was flat on the box (picture on the left). Then I tried using the fan folding method with the extra half of paper I had left, since it was more compact and I thought it would be better than crumpling paper and surrounding the egg. There will still a slight issue with closing the box all the way since the upper tube didn’t cover the egg completely, so that might’ve been a sign that this wasn’t going to work.
For the outside of the box, I used rolls of paper again, but this time I crossed them so the box wouldn’t be directly touching the ground. I made sure that every position it lands in wouldn’t touch the ground, but I felt like the taping job was pretty flimsy. Nevertheless, I tried this out and dropped it at 4.5m. But again, the egg broke.
Looking back at the video and the aftermath, it seems like the device landed on the side where it was least protected so all the impact was on the “back” of the egg. It seems like this damage was worse than the last device.
Round 3: Recreating This Prototype Again
Since I wasn’t there to do the live egg drop, I thought it would be cheating if I tried to change up my prototype after recording it from the 4.5m drop. So I basically recreated the same device but with a raw egg this time. In the 4.5m drop the tubes bent when it landed, so I rolled it tighter for this drop. I also changed up the fan-like cushions on the inside to be one piece of paper from top to bottom instead of multiple small scraps (which was what I did for the previous one). This time I dropped the egg from 2m instead of going for the 4.5m and it survived.
For the 3m drop it did not survive. The egg probably landed with the “top” hitting the ground, and since box covering the “top” of the egg was not cushioned like the bottom the egg took all the impact. The video sadly cut off when the device hit the ground, so I’m not sure what went wrong. But I did notice that when my dad dropped the it he added a little bit of a spin to it. That probably didn’t affect it much, but it definitely changed the orientation of the egg.
Final Thoughts
If I were to make another prototype, I think I would go back to the balloon cushion idea and use the cross tube method for the outside. While the tube inside required less paper, it wasn’t as protective as the balloon. The first prototype I had the egg just sitting on top of the balloons, but I think if I were to do it again I would stuff the egg slightly into the balloon and then cover the top of the egg the same way, so would be cushioned in between. I did actually try this out before doing the tube method, but I was afraid that when it hit the ground the egg would break through the hole of the balloon and then the cushion would be useless. So I didn’t try it out, but I think if we had more time I would try that again.
Another idea I had was to wrap the egg in a tube that goes all the way through one side of the box to the other. Again, it would suspend the egg, but this time the egg would be in the tube instead of having the tube cover it. The balloon cushion would then surround the top and bottom again. If I did it this way, that would be about 5 sheets of A4 paper. I would have to figure out how to do the cross tubes on the outside so that the box wouldn’t land directly on the ground.
Overall, I’m kind of not satisfied that it didn’t survive at least 3m. I might try this experiment again another time because I really do wish it survived.
(The video was too large to upload onto here so this is a link to it).
In memory of Eggward, Eggstaban, and Megg <3
(no eggs were wasted in this challenge)
