Egg Drop Lab

 Caitlin and I made our capsule out of a cardboard box. Since we the biggest our box could be was 35cm x 35cm, we made ours with a height of 31cm, a width of 16cm,  and a length of 31cm as well. We used a golf club sock and stuffed crumpled paper halfway into the sock to provide cushioning, as well as to crumple upon impact when hitting the ground so the time of impact would be elongated. This would allow the average force to be spread out through a longer period of time, so all of the force didn't act upon the egg at once. When putting the egg into the sock, we put bubble wrap around it as well, so there was a lesser chance of the egg moving out of place and cracking. We also wrapped the sock in bubble wrap for the exact same reasons. Caitlin and I also put a lot of crumpled paper into the box around the sock and under it. When we were brainstorming how to make the capsule, Caitlin and I thought it would be a good idea to accordion fold the sides of the box so they could crumple as well upon impact, but then we just decided not to. Lastly, we made sure our box was light, so there wouldn't be as much force when the capsule was dropped.




As you can see in the picture to the left, there are two diagrams. The first shows the capsule when it's falling. The forces that are acting upon the capsule are air resistance and weight, air resistance pushing up, and weight pushing down. The reason air resistance is so much smaller than weight, is because, since the capsule is falling, weight has a stronger force than air resistance does. The second diagram is for when the capsule hit the ground. While the capsule was still accelerating downward, its normal force was so much bigger, since it had just hit the ground, which is shown in the diagram.

Our capsule was 100% successful! The reasons for its beautifully untarnished shell, was mostly because of all the padding we had in the box. All the paper and bubble wrap lengthened the contact time, which, as I explained earlier, meant that there was less average force per second, so the force acted upon the egg at a much slower pace than if there was no padding at all. Also, as you can see of our capsule in the top left picture, it looks like our capsule hit the ground on its corner, which was the optimal area, since that corner was the farthest away from the egg, which was in the middle of the box. I think if I were to do this lab again, I would try to make the capsule smaller than it was before, since the less mass it would have, the less force there would be when the capsule hit the ground.