Hosting and Planning for an Egg Drop
We had such a fun day yesterday hosting an egg drop at our house.
We had invited a bunch of our friends to come over with some sort of contraption to try and keep a raw egg from cracking or breaking when it was thrown off our deck onto our patio.
It was so simple to host and plan! I just had to make sure our patio was cleaned off, that we had nice weather, and that everyone came prepared with an egg and a plan to prevent it from breaking.
We had the perfect weather for it and all the kids were so excited.
My boys had been hard at work a few day prior to the egg drop trying to decide how best to cushion their egg. They tried (and got rid of) parachutes made out of plastic bags or towels. They padded the outside of the boxes as well as inside, Ian gave his box "feet" so that they would keep the box up off the ground.
My only role was to dig out supplies. I asked them what they wanted to use and they told me they needed boxes, packaging material from Amazon orders, string, an empty egg carton, tape, rags, and maybe some recyclables.
I set them out in a line bordering our kitchen and sat back to watch the boys work and be on hand if they needed help with something in particular (I often held the boxes shut while they taped them or helped tape them while they held it shut).
It was wonderful to see the looks of intense concentration and hear all their reasoning behind trying their methods. They could not wait to test out their completed projects!
Yesterday all the kids took turns, two at a time, dropping their eggs and then checking to see if they broke or not.
We had only one or two that cracked and all the rest survived.
It was so wonderful to see the variety of creations!
We had one girl who used marshmallows to pad her egg. Another boy used popcorn! We had one boy who used cotton padded around the egg stuffed in a mug cozy and suspended by quite a few balloons; his egg glided down and had such a soft landing! Many kids used packing material and boxes while a few tried using canisters.
No two projects were exactly alike and the children got to see all different ways to cushion an egg.
A few tried re-dropping theirs a couple of times until they did break but most were content to run off and play once everyone had had a turn.
It was so much fun tat I think we'll have to turn it into an annual event.... maybe next time we'll try dropping them from a second story window!
We had invited a bunch of our friends to come over with some sort of contraption to try and keep a raw egg from cracking or breaking when it was thrown off our deck onto our patio.
It was so simple to host and plan! I just had to make sure our patio was cleaned off, that we had nice weather, and that everyone came prepared with an egg and a plan to prevent it from breaking.
We had the perfect weather for it and all the kids were so excited.
My boys had been hard at work a few day prior to the egg drop trying to decide how best to cushion their egg. They tried (and got rid of) parachutes made out of plastic bags or towels. They padded the outside of the boxes as well as inside, Ian gave his box "feet" so that they would keep the box up off the ground.
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| Evan's finished! |
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| He used a plastic container inside of a box and padded everything |
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| Ian was hot gluing feet on his for his box to land on |
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| Alec tried to attach a fabric parachute to his |
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| Ian decided to add a second pair of feet to the other side of the box |
My only role was to dig out supplies. I asked them what they wanted to use and they told me they needed boxes, packaging material from Amazon orders, string, an empty egg carton, tape, rags, and maybe some recyclables.
I set them out in a line bordering our kitchen and sat back to watch the boys work and be on hand if they needed help with something in particular (I often held the boxes shut while they taped them or helped tape them while they held it shut).
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| Our supplies |
It was wonderful to see the looks of intense concentration and hear all their reasoning behind trying their methods. They could not wait to test out their completed projects!
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| Alec's finished contraption |
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| Ian's box; all padded and propped up |
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| Evan's was the simplest |
Yesterday all the kids took turns, two at a time, dropping their eggs and then checking to see if they broke or not.
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| Ian dropped his first |
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| It survived! |
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| Evan dropped his next |
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| It too survived! |
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| Alec dropped his next |
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| And was so happy to have a whole egg left! |
We had only one or two that cracked and all the rest survived.
It was so wonderful to see the variety of creations!
We had one girl who used marshmallows to pad her egg. Another boy used popcorn! We had one boy who used cotton padded around the egg stuffed in a mug cozy and suspended by quite a few balloons; his egg glided down and had such a soft landing! Many kids used packing material and boxes while a few tried using canisters.
No two projects were exactly alike and the children got to see all different ways to cushion an egg.
A few tried re-dropping theirs a couple of times until they did break but most were content to run off and play once everyone had had a turn.
It was so much fun tat I think we'll have to turn it into an annual event.... maybe next time we'll try dropping them from a second story window!
How cool! Such a great way to promote problem solving and creativity. I love their proud little faces at success.
ReplyDeleteThey were so thrilled with themselves! I think having friends around to ooh and aah over it helped too.
DeleteMy kids' high school does that project, but they put more limitations on what materials you can use. How fun that you did it as a homeschool get together!
ReplyDeleteIt was great and I'm sure if we do it at least a few times as my boys get older we'll start limiting materials to but for their first time they were quite nervous and unsure that the eggs would survive at all. It was a lot of fun.
DeleteWhat a fun activity! I bet my son would love doing this.
ReplyDeleteIt was so much fun! We went to an air museum today and I was inspired for next year's challenge; make a parachute and safely land a "guy" on the ground. It was quite difficult!
DeleteThis has always been one of my favorite engineering experiments! There are so many ways to change it up to fit all age groups and abilities. Love it!
ReplyDeleteThanks; we were thinking of hosting another and this time dropping it from a much higher height with a few constraints on what can and can't be used.
DeleteHow fun! I did this way back in Jr. High, but a teacher took all our eggs up to the roof to drop and we just watched them fall. It would be so much more fun to drop them personally off a house balcony like this! Thanks for joining us again at #FridayFrivolity - this is my feature!
ReplyDeleteI remember doing this in junior high too. Our whole grade gathered outside around the base of some scaffolding set to the height of our roof and our teachers dropped them for us. I remember that mine survived and I was voted "prettiest case" or something like that since I had painted a sunset scene on the outside of my shoe box. The kids had a ball dropping their own and most tried dropping theirs multiple times. Thanks for the feature!
DeleteGreat project!! Thanks so much for stopping by!!
ReplyDeleteHugs,
Debbie
Thanks! It was such a fun day.
DeleteI love this idea. Is it bad that I want to do it with a bunch of girlfriends drinking wine?
ReplyDeleteI don't think so. Sounds like fun.
Delete