Aim :
Find out how to make a parachute that can descend and protect an egg.
Goal
- Have the slowest drop time
- Most Creative name and Parachute
- Most visual pleasing
Research :
Mark Rober Egg Drop (1st Place egg drop)
Mark Rober Egg Drop from space
Plan :
Our plan of our parachute is to make a design that is inspired from the movie from up. The egg would be sitting in a box that has a house and has a container that keeps an egg safe and protected. There would be soft pads that can absorb the shock impact from the ground if the parachute won’t work. Our original plan was to put balloons inside of the parachute so it can fall slower and smoother. There would be popsicle sticks in the bottom to prevent the box from sliding sideways and possibly flip over and make the egg fall.
The parachute is going to be bigger so it can have a bigger surface area to trap and escape air from the parachute to make our egg fall slower.
Variables
Independent Variables :
Things we control on the experiment to change the results of our experiment ( How we make our parachute to make our drop slower)
Dependent Variables :
Things we measure and record for the experiment ( How we record our time of our egg drop )
Controlled Variables :
Using the same type of equipment to build our project.
Hypothesis
I predict that our parachute would work because it’s much bigger and our drop time will be slower. The container that we made that consists of soft pads will absorb the impact from the floor; keeping the egg safe.
Method :
Equipment :
- Hot Glue Gun
- 10x Cardboard pieces
- Yogurt container
- 7x foam pieces
- Plastic Bag
- String
Instructions :
The base/House :
- Gather all of your equipment
- Cut four cardboard pieces that are the same size (Four Walls)
- Hot glue the four pieces of cardboard ( Make it to a box)
- Cut another piece of cardboard and use the box as a guide to cut your bottom. (This creates a box with a base)
The container :
- Apply a tiny piece of cardboard inside of the middle of the box and hot glue it.
- Clean your yogurt container and hot glue it in the middle of the cardboard
- Cut your foam pieces into shapes that can fit in the bottom of your yogurt container
- Add four more foam pieces inside of the yogurt container in the four sides that surround it ( This breaks the impact force)
Roof
- Cut four cardboard pieces of trapezium that are the same length of your walls of the box
- Hot glue it from the top of the box ( This creates the roof)
Parachute
- Get a plastic bag
- Cut it into a square but make sure it’s only one side ( The square plastic should be 1 layer thick)
- Cut four strings that are the same length
- Tape the strings in the four corners for your parachute
- Get the other side of your strings hot and glue it into your box
- Test it
Results from our drop :
- Drop time : 2.08 seconds ( slowest time)
- The egg didn’t break (It was safe and sound) (We broke our original egg while making the parachute)
- Our parachute was the slowest to fall
Discussion
Why did some of the parachutes fall faster than others? Link this to the formula for forces (F = ma)
The reason that some parachutes fall faster is that it depends how big, thick or any factors that change the functionality of a parachute
The mass can also change the acceleration or the forces depending how little or how big the mass of for parachute
( F = MxA)
Were the forces balanced or unbalanced when your egg was falling? Link this to air resistance and weight.
Our parachute was balanced due to it’s size being equal to the box we made that can contain our egg. The egg is fairly the same mass of our parachute that it’s equal to each other.
Conclusion:
How would you improve your design next time? Why would you do this? Reflect on how your experiment went.
I wouldn’t really change our design because we build our contraption the same as our idea. But there’s some improvements that we have to make, like being more prepared and not doing int he last minute or just making our contraption look better.
Extension task: add arrows to this google drawing to show the size and direction of the forces acting on your egg parachute.