The classic egg drop experiment

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Looking for a fun science idea?  We loved the classic egg drop experiment!

Photo from Depositphotos

I've decided to put together some classic science activities to do with kids.  Have yous seen our "which snack food is the greasiest" experiment?  This was the natural first choice because it involved junk food we don't typically accept at our business firm – and of form the sampling of it.

For our second experiment we made a mess.  Besides fun. 😉

Our goal: to make a cushion which would keep our egg from breaking in a fall.  My Seven held the egg in a handbag of water.  My 6 held the egg in an empty plastic purse.  We made our predictions, and we were in agreement: the egg in h2o had a improve hazard of surviving the drop.

Nosotros placed an unopened garbage purse on our cement patio for piece of cake clean-up in case the bags should divide open.  My Vii and Half-dozen dropped their bags at the aforementioned time.  No surprise — the egg without cushion bankrupt on impact.

But the egg in water survived the fall!  This had us thinking nearly other possible cushioning materials.  Would our sandbox sand do the task?

My Iv dropped the egg this time, and we learned that sandbox sand was a keen absorber.  How about paper?

Nosotros scrunched up the newspaper and packaged it around the egg.  My Ii dropped the handbag.

Nosotros were surprised that the egg broke, but we realized that it had not been balanced in the cloth.  When my 2 dropped the purse, the egg pulled it to one side, and the egg made a direct hit on the concrete.  Whoops.  We could accept tried this again with better packaging, merely nosotros wanted to see if an egg could survive a autumn in an egg carton.

Considering all the broken eggs we encounter at the grocery shop, we were quite certain it would not.

My Six held the carton at chest height…

… and dropped it.  We opened upward the carton, expecting to discover a yolky mess.

But nosotros were wrong!  How near if we held the carton higher?  My Seven held the carton higher up her head and let it autumn.

The egg was still intact!

So my Iv stood on a chair, held the carton over his head, and slammed it down.

Splat!

The classic egg drib activity leaves room for so much experimenting!  Try some of these variations:

Other materials to attempt for cushion:

• newspaper towels or kleenex
• pudding or Jell-O
• cereal
• chimera wrap

Further investigations:

• Repeat the experiment with dissimilar amounts of the same material in each bag.  For case, fill one bag one-half total of water and one purse three quarters full.
• Fill several bags with the same material, but drib them at different heights.  Does dropping the egg at a dissimilar height brand a deviation in how well it stays together?
• Drop the egg onto dissimilar surfaces.  We used concrete. You could also drop the egg onto grass, a pile of dirt, or a bucket of water.

The science:

When you driblet the egg, information technology gains speed as information technology falls. Without whatever protection, it hits the ground hard and fast, causing information technology to interruption.  When yous protect the egg by packaging information technology in h2o, newspaper, or another cushioning material, yous reduce the impact of the fall on the egg.  The cushion hits the basis first, protecting  the egg from the total force of the impact.   Whether the egg breaks depends on the amount of free energy your padding arrangement absorbs.

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Source: https://www.themeasuredmom.com/classic-egg-drop-experiment/

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