Off the wall question

[Kali]

The point behind viscous liquids isn't really to reduce the actual impact, it's to reduce the spot impact force so it spreads around the shell somewhat. I think sticking the egg in an uninflated balloon or two would also act as something of a damper for impact shock, although I guess if it's a thin shelled egg it might also just add more stress :S

[Hawk]

Was there any mention of not being able to use a parachute?

Do a Google search using drop an egg from 500 feet as the search term. You'd be surprised at how many hits you get on this very topic, although I didn't see any with the 500 foot requirement.

[emdsd90mac]

Hawk, yes a parachute can be used but, there is the variable of getting the canopy to inflate. The person in the plane that is dropping the projects will not set up each experiment. Essentially, each one has to be ready to go and if it's not dropped out of the plane the right way the canopy may not inflate rendering the chute unusable. If we go this route, we are thinking of using a large garbage bag as the chute and taping some 550 cord (parachute cord) to it. So many idea. I knew I count on our community to come up with some brilliant thoughts on this.

[Kali]

No need for cord, really; attach the chute to the ball of bubblewrap & attach a little drogue chute to the top of the main chute so it turns the right way up and inflates.

I think foam might be a better bet than bubblewrap - bubblewrap isn't actually that good at absorbing shocks, it's good at filling space ( and being cheap ).

[Hawk]

Peanut butter. Gobs and gobs of peanut butter.

[peterhayes]

Attach the egg in a harness in a container/box to a balloon filled with a mixture of helium/air so that it gently floats down to earth.
Using thick viscous fluids may not prevent a breakage due the impact pressure experienced when comiing to a sudden stop 32ft/sec to zero is pretty high impact.
Regards
PeterH

[NDORFN]

Have you thought about hypnosis? As in hynotise the pilot to not throw the egg out of the window and upon landing, place it gently on the ground? Alternatively, you could try making it like a sycamore seed. Possibly with two wings and some padding, but you shouldn't need much if your wing design is efficient.

[PapaXpress]

hypnosis .... ok.... lets explore a more brute force way of thinking... cast the egg in the center of an 9 inch ball of reinforced concrete. It should land without a scratch.

Just don't forget to bring a shovel.


and a hammer and chisel to get the egg out.

[Chacal]

I would go with the harness and elastics.
Make the whole apparatus as light as possible to reduce terminal velocity.

[NDORFN]

I would go with the harness and elastics.
Make the whole apparatus as light as possible to reduce terminal velocity.

Make it light AND draggy... http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/termv.html

[arizonachris]

Y'all missed it, throw the chicken out, then the egg.

Oh, and I like my eggs scrambled, with cheese, bacon bits, onion and mushrooms. Wheat toast on the side, thanks.

[Kali]

Make it light AND draggy... http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/termv.html

There's only a certain volume of space to work in - which means unless you use an unfolding chute there's a fixed upper limit to surface area of the egg container ( doesn't mention attaching strings of balloons though! ). So it's down to reducing density.

Hydrogen is a lot more bouyant than helium, but I don't know if he's going to want to take a bunch of hydrogen balloons on a plane!

[emdsd90mac]

Well you all, first I want to thank all of you for your input on this very much off the wall topic. We have decided to go with the bubble wrap idea for the following reasons. 1) It's very light weight and will have a very low impact speed. We did a test where we wrapped the egg in some Polyfil pillow stuffing and then rolled this in a 12" by 30' piece of bubble wrap. Finished dimensions: 12" wide by 10" in diameter. I gave this thing a bear hug, squeezing it pretty hard right in the center harder than I believe the impact will be and the result was no breakage. Wish us luck fellow rail simers. I will be sure to post the results. You guys and gals rock!!!!

[Toonces]

Yes, the size limit is 10" X 10" due to the size of the window on the aircraft it's being dropped out of. I am now considering using a plastic 1 gallon gas can filled with gelatin. At 500', I know the container will break, but I am hoping the gelatin will provide enough energy absorption to allow for the eggs survival. But that leaves me with one other problem and that is terminal velocity; the heavier I make it the greater the terminal velocity equaling in a higher impact speed. Friday is the drop and it will be interesting.

I wonder if you could use a can of the spray foam insulation that you would find at a place like Home Depot, and just surround the egg with a rigid foam. You would end up having to cut away the foam at the end to prove/disprove whether it actually worked or not however.

There are a couple of competing things here - if you surround it with a gelatin, it would probably protect the egg as long as the container itself didn't break, but the container would of course be heavier. If you went with something that was extremely lightweight, then wind resistance would mean that it wouldn't fall as fast.

I suppose it would violate the rules to pack a parachute in the container

[emdsd90mac]

I just wanted to report to all who gave me ideas on this egg drop that it was a success and out egg didn't break. Thank you all very much for you input. His teacher decided to pick on him a little bit and dropped his egg from 1000 feet and it survived. Bubble wrap worked awesome!!!