Robert Pereira
Mrs. McClain
Science
11 May, 2015

Egg Drop Apparatus

Our egg drop apparatus failed to protect our egg. Our container was a rectangular box

made of sticks. There was cotton balls at the bottom along with rubber bands. Also at the bottom of the base were straws. Lastly, it was wrapped in tape and used as a seat belt for the egg. This design didn’t work so we thought of ways to make it better. The three major changes we made to the design of our egg drop apparatus were the plastic bag, using lighter materials, and elevating the egg from the base. One of the changes we made was the plastic bag that acted as a parachute. The parachute helped by adding in more air resistance to the egg. The air resistance will help slow down the egg and balance it out as it falls. The parachute does this because it has a large surface area and will catch more air. Since the parachute is slowing the egg down then the acceleration is also decreasing. Newton’s second law states that acceleration times mass equals force. So if the parachute decreases the acceleration the force on the egg will decrease making it less likely to break. Another change we had made was using lighter materials to decrease mass. If we decrease the mass the momentum that egg will have will also lessen because momentum equals mass times velocity. Also by decreasing the momentum the impulse will decrease as well. The lighter the materials will do this by increasing the time it takes to slow down the egg. Which means the force acting on it will decrease. So the ground won’t send so much force back at the egg. The last major