Monday, December 17, 2012

Egg Drop Report

     In my class as we were designing or egg drop cup we had to think about its center of gravity so the cup wouldn't fall over or bounce out. We decided to add some popsicle sticks on the bottom of the cup to weigh it down and if the egg didn't hit in the middle it wouldn't fall over. Being in a group of 3 we had to come up with at least two cups at the same time. To have the egg stop we decided to make a trampoline out of the rubber bands and put paper shreds on top of that so it would be cushioned and it wouldn't stop immediately. Over time we had to make a few changes so our eggs would be a little safer like shredding more paper to give it extra cushion on impact. On a later model of a cup we lowered our trampoline so when the egg landed it wouldn't be so top heavy and fall over and it made it harder for the egg to bounce out because it had more it needed to clear. We also added our 2 last popsicle sticks on the bottom with the other four to have extra stability when our group got all the way to a goal of 5.1 meters.

     Although our egg was injured on the 3.5 meter drop I think it was the best one because we did almost all of the other previous heights on the same day using Camille's through-the-meter stick method of when she would look through the triangular meter stick and drop the egg where her eye had been. So when we did drop from the a plus height she spent about half a minute aiming through the stick and slowly put the egg right above the stick pulled it away and let it drop. everyone had been watching us and it was dead silent, The cup had shifted a little and the egg had peeked out of the top and fell back in. Mr. Lammers went up and picked up the cup pulled the egg out carefully and found that there was a small crack in the side of it and decided that it was only injured which meant we had achieved the first A+ in the grade. I think My group and I didn't ever face that many difficulties because we rushed right through everything and got the best grade possible. We did face an ominous challenge when we were trying to get a world record and that was mainly with aiming which we could have improved by maybe using some string but otherwise I think we did just fine in the difficulties area. Once again I don't really know what we could have done to improve our drop performance maybe we could use some string to aim more accurately but otherwise that's it. I would have like to have been able to have any resource because before I realized that the cup was the main body I had had a great idea to build a contraption like a box with rubber bands to slow it down but the cup seemed to work out really well for most groups especially mine.

     When Camille was holding the egg in her hand the egg had approximately 0 velocity, then the egg would have been accelerating at a rate of 11.94 m/s squared to a average speed of 5.22 m/s with a momentum of 0.34 kg*m/s, it also had a force of 0.781 as it hit the cup.

Calculations

Speed=3.5m/0.67sec    5.22m/s
Accel.=8m/s/0.67sec    11.94m/s/s
Momentum=0.0654*5.22    0.34kg*m/s
Force=0.0654*11.94    0.781N

     Momentum was an important aspect in our egg drop because we needed to think about how much momentum the egg would hit the cup at so we could figure out how the egg needs to be stopped. That is why my group had to put so much shredded paper in our cup because we got so high that our egg had a lot of momentum by the time it hit the cup and it needed something really soft to stop the egg. As we got higher up the momentum got greater because the egg was given a chance to get to its full velocity so having a safe egg on the lowers heights was a lot greater than my groups final destination.

     The egg was first in Camille's hand and it had nothing going on with it except for a little motion a she was moving it into launching position. When she let go speed, momentum, and force were all rising up as it accelerated wile it was falling. Everything was as high as it ever was going to get in the drop just before it landed into the cup. everything stopped when it hit the cups bottom and then maybe had a small increase as it bounced up and then falling back down assuming that the egg hadn't exploded.

The force that made the fall possible in this project was gravity and it was what we had to pay attention to because that was what determined wether our egg would fall and crack or bounce. Its force of gravity is what was determining the fact that it might crack because of its connection of gravity to the earth. The fluid friction in the air is what slowed the egg down and kept it from speeding up to the point where it would have been impossible to save it with our resources. Its air resistance slowed it down in the air and is what made it fall straight down instead of sideways because when it was straight it was as aerodynamic as possible.

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