WeekWithoutWalls: The Great Egg Drop Challenge 3.11

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Photo descriptions: photo 1-4: teams are given 15 minutes to complete final assembly of their containers; photos 5-6: teams load their eggs just prior to launching; photos 7-14: the preliminary round; photos 15-17: the final round; photos 18-22: back in class, containers are opened and eggs revealed.

The final day of our Week Without Walls culminated with the classic Egg Drop Challenge. Teams were to design a container for a raw egg which, when dropped from a height, would protect the egg from breakage.

There were only three rules: the container must weigh less than 1 kg; the container must be small enough to fit into a basket (which I had in class); and teams must load the egg, which we provided, just prior to competition.

The challenge was introduced on Tuesday, and teams had all week to plan and collect materials.

The challenge was conducted in two rounds: in the first round, teams were to drop their container from about desk height; those eggs surviving this (and in our case 7 of 8 did), moved to the second round where containers were dropped from the second floor of the elementary building.

Containers were then returned to the classroom where they were opened one by one for all to see and cheer (or lament) the results.

Miraculously, 6 of the 7 containers making it to the second round successfully protected their fragile payload from breakage!