Yesterday, we did the same Project that we have been doing for almost a week. The project consists in building a structure that will protect the egg enough to be thrown from the 4th Form Space without the egg breaking. This project had some changes from the starting rules of the first time. Yesterday the groups were split, now every person had to do its own structure for his egg individually. The materials were not provided by teachers. We could use whatever material we wanted to use except for tape. Also the structure could not be bigger than an acorn squash.
After my class was given the rules I started to gather materials. My idea was to make a parachute to make the fall slower so the egg did not break. I found a plastic bag, wooden sticks, cotton balls, rubber band and nylon cable ties. I use rubber bands to hold the bag to the cup. Then I made a structure inside the cup with wooden sticks for the egg and I used cotton balls as padding. I tried this parachute based structure and it did not look like it was going to work because the parachute was too small. After my experiments I looked for a bigger bag and I cut a zip lock bag in half and then glued the half’s to make a bigger parachute. This time I used nylon cable ties to hold the parachute to the cup. This structure had a better chance to work. When I was going up the stairs to the fourth form space the nylon cable ties broke and then they weren’t holding the parachute right. The egg and the structure were too heavy for the parachute. When I threw it the ties broke and they stopped holding the parachute and the structure together. The egg simply shattered.
If we have a next try, my idea will be determined again by the materials provided. If the materials and the rules are the same for the next try I will make my parachute bigger and the joints much stronger so the cup holding the egg would not break the joints. Also the structure in the cup would be stronger so in case the parachute fails the egg would still land safely
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