July | 2019 | Lin Learning Center

After weeks of planning, building and modifying containers, children came up with their own unqiue design to test their egg drop challenge. Some of the children focused on slowing down the gravity using a parachute while others tried to minimize the impact by providing a lot of cushion, and some did both.

Here are contestants and their desgins for the Egg Drop Challenge

Each contestant’s egg was placed inside their individually designed container. Then they dropped them from the first floor plat form of the church playground.

Who’s egg survived and who’s egg didn’t?

Here are the winners of the Egg Drop Challenge: One kindergartener, one first grader, one third grader and two forth graders succeeded.

Congratulations to all children who participated in the challenge. Even though not all of the children’s eggs survived, all of their containers did provide some form of protection. Comparing with the egg that was dropped without any protection, there was a huge part of egg that were saved.

What did we learn from this experiment?

Children observed 2 major differences in design between people who have succeeded vs. not succeeded.

Egg was securely positioned inside the container.
Egg was well padded or cushioned to minimize impact.

Another Challenge: Making A Prediction On Teacher’s Design

Based on their own experience and learning from the previous experiment, children had to make a prediction on one of teacher’s design, whether or not the egg will survive.

After carefully examining the container, all children agreed that the egg will survive. They noted that egg is securely positioned inside the container and there is a sufficient amount of padding where there won’t be any direct contact with the ground.

The result came out as the children predicted. Thus we conclude our Egg Drop Challenge. Many Children have commented that it was one of hardest projects that they had to work on and they are happy that they were able to figure out various parts of challenge.

References:

Queen Of The Falls by Chris Van Allsburg
Where’s Niagra Falls? by Megan Shine
Egg Drop by Mini Grey
Gravity by Jason Chin
What does gravity do? by Alix Wood
Air outside, inside, all around by Dorlene Stille
I Fall Down by Viki Cobb
How Do Parachutes Work? Jennifer Boothroyd
Force Make things Move by Brusker Bradely
Energy Makes things Happen by Kimberly Brubaker
World Book Encyclopedia on Flight

After reading the fantastic adventure of Annie Edson Taylor, Barreling Over Niagara Falls by Nancy Kelly Allen, children were inspired by the true story of Annie Taylor who was the first daredevil to barrel down the Niagara Falls and survive in 1901. To further explore this event and expand the children’s knowledge of different materials from the previous project, we decided to do an egg drop challenge where children had to design a container using open ended materials to prevent their egg from cracking after dropped from the first floor of a building.

What made Annie Edson Taylor successful? Children pointed out that the key reason for her survival was a well planned design of her barrel. We also examined 4 other daredevils who attempted the fall and made predictions whether or not they would be successful. These daredevils used a kayak, a tin barrel, water scooter and an air filled container. Many of the children agreed that the open structures like kayak and water scooter are not good choices for the task. Sure enough those 2 daredevils didn’t make it.

Impact

Another key element of success is the science concept that the children have to understand. To help the children understand, we simply started by asking what happens when objects are dropped from the ceiling height?

Children observed that all objects fall to the ground. However depends on the type of material, it can either break, dent or maintain it’s original shape. Unlike fragile or hard materials, children noted that materials that are felxible tend to keep it’s original form after collision with the ground.

Effect Of Gravity

Now that the children understand that all objects fall to the ground, does different types of materials make a difference? 10 objects with various sizes and weights were chosen for children to think about; when they all get dropped from the same height. Most of the children hypothesized that heavier objects will be dropped faster than lighter objects.

What was the result of the experiement? The result was broken down into 2 groups, one group took less than 1 second and the other group took longer than 2 second. Thus it’s not always true that lighter the object, slower the fall. Almost all objects fall to the ground with same speed.

Then how about the same object dropped in the air with a different positioning or shape, i.e. paper horizontally vs. vertically and paper crumbled up vs. straighten?

Air Resistance/ Friction

Children experimented air resistance and friction through running across the room with:

Paper Bag Open vs. Closed

2 Different Paper Bags: big and wide vs. narrow and small

Different Type Of Kites: with cell vs. with skeletal structure

Get To Work

After learning all these scientific concepts and studying Annie and other daredevils’ designs, students were busy getting to work to create their own container design. It took many days for them to try their ideas by playing around with many different materials and also testing them out. None of them succeeded at first but learn to be happy with a small success and hope to make it even more succesful for the following day. Somedays, children got tried of trying and had to take a break by doing something else, like simply playing with toys.