Egg Drop Project
BESS (Better Egg Shipping System)
Purpose: To prevent from breaking when shipping the egg
Description
I watched a video of the egg drop project which was made with the rubber bands and the wood sticks that was already done by somebody else. I thought it was pretty cool idea and nicely completed. However there was a problem which is that it is not fixable which you cannot reuse more than once and have to make it again each time because it is made out of the wood stick which would break every time you use it, but I still got the idea of the rubber bands at some point.
Materials
First, I decided to only use two materials which are straws and the rubber bands. The purpose of using straws and rubber bands is that rubber bands is able to stretch and it could also be bouncy; and the straws are flexible and soft which is easy to bend when I need to connect something. How I am going to use these materials is that: I will use the straws and cut it to make the outer layer and base and all the parts to make it connected; then I will use the rubber bands to connect each straws together, so I will put the rubber bands inside the straws to connect between each sides so that the outer parts will be very stretch as it is connected with the rubber bands. Lastly, I will create a container for the egg and I will use the rubber bands to connect the container with the outer layers so it would be flexible and would stretch down easily. Only if this works, I wouldn’t need any materials other than these two because I thought that these two materials could be pretty strong when I know how to use it wisely.
However, through building the BESS and making some changes in design process,
I realized the outer layer part is bit too weak to only use the straws to have enough force, so I decided to use the wire and put it inside the straw and bend it to make it stronger. From adding the wire, the BESS got heavier but it got stronger to support the egg. And I also added a parachute with a plastic bag because I thought that my BESS drops too quickly, so I added a parachute hope it makes bit slower.
Procedure
How would this work?
The main purpose of using the rubber bands and the straws for the main materials is to make the BESS bounce-able and stretch-able so that it would give less force when it drops. For example, if it was made out of something hard such as wood, it would probably break apart when it drops on the floor because the force is going right throw the wood. However, because my BESS is made out of straws and rubber bands which are flexible and soft, it would bounce off the floor when it drops unlike other materials and gives less force.
How would this be built?
As you can see from the image, from the base to the top, it is all made up with the outer layer only; and the outer layer is made out of the wire, rubber bands and straws. I cut the straw for around 15cm and made 5 of them, and I put the rubber bands inside each straw to connect between each of them for the most bottom part, the base. I did the same thing for three times, but just made the length smaller and smaller; but for the second row, I put the wire instead the rubber bands because the second row is supposed to be supported for the egg to stay because that’s where I am going to connect with the egg container.
I will use the Popsicle stick and the rubber bands to make the egg container, so that it would also bounce off the floor and not break when it drops. For the egg container, I will make 4 Popsicle sticks of two connected with the super glue and wrap it up with the rubber bands for the outside part.
Report
How to make the egg drop slowly?
To make my egg drop slowly, I used parachute with the plastic bag because the air inside the plastic bag would slow down the speed when the egg drops, so it would be helpful to land slower. It was pretty tough to make my egg drop slowly but still land on the target, but I used straws and rubber bands to make it bouncy. Especially at the bottom base part, I made it very loose, therefore when it drops and touches the floor, the width of the base part will be larger because it’s very stretch, and that’s what would hold the egg to not drop.
How to minimize the mass of the BESS?
I found that to keep the mass small is actually really hard so I used only rubber bands and straws to minimize the mass of the BESS. However, since I also had to add the wire in order to make the outer layer be fixed and not movable, and because I add the wires, the mass got larger; but I still think using rubber bands and straws for the main materials was one of the way to keep the mass small rather than using other materials that are very heavy such as clays or sponges.
Why did the egg not survive?
My egg eventually did not survive so did the BESS. My plan was to make the upper part stronger and the base part looser; so when it drops, the upper part will stay strong to hold and support the egg, and the base, the bottom part of the layer would stretch out when it touches the floor because it was very loose as it is made out of the rubber bands and straws which is very stretchy. However, since I wanted to make the upper part stronger, I thought that the straws are too weak to maintain, so I added a wire inside the straws; and for the base part, because I wanted it to be stretched out when it touches the floor, I only used few straws to support which was actually really weak. And that was the mistake I made. The BESS was not even strong enough to support the egg, but it was also heavy; so it did not have enough force to support the egg, but heavy and not that slow.
Also, I had a poor egg container and had no support. (That is not exactly how it looked like, but it’s about similar) As you can see from the pictures below, that is where we put the egg. In the actual one, we had some more wood stick to support the outside, so that the egg would actually stay still. However, because the wood stick is too weak and easy to break, it did not support to hold the egg at all, so it literally broke apart when it dropped on the floor immediately.
How could this be improved?
Next time when I am creating the egg design, I would now remind myself these two things: light and slow. I will use least materials and try to use the ones which has small mass; then I will try to think of any other way to make the BESS slower other than parachute with the plastic bag. Most of the students were using the plastic bag to make the BESS drops slower, because it actually does help a lot to make it slower, however I want something creative, so I will try to find the other way to make it slower. For this time when I was creating the design, I thought the outside part was the most important part, and I thought that the egg container was not that important. However when creating the BESS I realized that every single steps are really important and it decides whether you success protecting the egg or not. I will try to make the egg container much stronger and easy to fix next time, because my egg container for this time was actually really weak and easy to break, and even hard to fix which gives no support. Not to add more materials which would make the mass larger, but to add more details, for example when connecting things together, make sure it is attached well and not breakable; and also to make it supportive for the egg.
After this unit...
I have learned certain things: BESS (Better Egg Shipping System) and its purposes. I've learned the importance of the sustainability and supports when constructing something. Some challenges I faced in creating this project was time management. My group had issues with time management because we have not started building the actual product until the last minute. Nex time, I would consider to start my project earlier.