Egg Drop Final Test!

Last Wednesday, we finally tested our egg drop contraption, which Megan and I named the JTEC (Jamestown Egg Catcher) because Mrs. Vestal said it looks like a Jamestown fort!

First, we weighed three different eggs (Well, actually four because one rolled off the scale). We named our eggs EA, MA, and AM.

We dropped each egg in order of weight, greatest to least, while increasing our dropping heights.

Here is a video of our second drop (Jordyn took this video!)

We successfully dropped and caught our first two eggs, but on our third drop I hesitated and accidentally aimed outside of the catcher causing the egg to fall on Lia's phone, which was strategically placed on the ground near the egg catcher facing up so that we could film the egg falling. Sorry Lia! Because of our success during the first two drops, Megan and I agreed not to make changes to our contraption during the final tests.

These are the results:

The hardest part of the drop test was measuring the height accurately, which meant the person dropping the egg had to measure the height with a tape measure in one hand and hold the plum bob in the other. However, the other teams worked to help us with this task and that made it easier.

Finally, part of our lab project included finding the math behind the egg drop and solving for the final velocity of the egg just before it hits the catcher or the floor.

Mrs. Vestal helped us figure out the math and explained the reason behind it:

Basically, the egg's potential energy and kinetic energy remains constant throughout the drop; however, the respective values of the potential and kinetic energy change. Before the egg is dropped, the egg has a certain amount of potential energy. After the egg is dropped and as the egg is falling, the original potential energy is converted into kinetic energy. Right before the egg makes contact with the egg catcher, the egg has reached its peak value of kinetic energy and has essentially no potential energy.

Note: The "m" in the parentheses in the last step of the math stands for "height in meters."

So for our three drops:

Egg 1 (drop 2) velocity: 7.25 m/s        final kinetic energy: 1.6 J

Egg 2 (drop 1) velocity: 6.58 m/s        final kinetic energy: 1.41 J

Egg 3 (drop 3) velocity: 9.80 m/s        final kinetic energy: 2.72 J

Overall, this was a great learning experience and I really enjoyed working in teams. Megan is an awesome partner and I feel really excited that our catcher worked! We came in second place and I think we fulfilled our goal of creating an effective egg catcher. Go JTEC! If the first place team combined the top of their catcher (which looks like a wrestling ring) with the base of our catcher, we would create a world class egg catcher because our base is a bit more stable than theirs and their top has a larger catching area. I'm so glad engineers are collaborative because it leads to wonderful solutions!