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Wednesday, April 21, 2004 |
Leigh's Kindergarten class had an event on April 15 2004 called the "Spring Egg Drop".
The homework instructions for this event were:
- Put a raw egg in a baggie
- Package the egg anyway you like, such that it will not break when it hits the ground from a high place
- Size of package may not exceed 7"x7"x7"
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Since we've been looking at the Mars Exploration Rover Mission page, we were inspired by the Spirit Mars Rover lander system for the egg drop package design. Leigh's teacher said a parachute would not violate the 7"x7"x7" size limit.
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The Spirit Rover's lander system is basically a pyramid/prism shaped box surrounded by balloons, with a parachute, and descent rockets to slow it down just before the package is released to bounce to a stop on the surface of Mars.
Click the picture of the Spirit lander to see a 3D animation from Nasa of how the lander system might look as it descends to Mars! |
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We used "foamcore" board to make the box, and put pink balloons all around the sides and bottom. Then we made a parachute using a garbage bag and some string, and electrical wire and a plastic ring for the parachute harness.
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The "high place" was just the one story classroom where the Kindergarten is, so it wasn't very high. The other children in the class made many different styles of "egg drop" package. Most were variations on the theme of a box with padding, and egg inside. One girl had an umbrella attached to a cloth bag. There were 2 other parachute-like systems using plastic bags.
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The egg drop "contraptions" were thrown off the roof one at a time by the Principle of the school, Mr. Wong. Click the picture of school Principal Mr. Wong throwing Leigh's Mars Lander styled egg drop package, to see a movie of the actual drop! Needless to say, the egg survived! (Later, we threw this "Egg Lander" from the 4th floor of a building at Apple Computer, and it worked great there too!)
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2:13:45 AM 
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© Copyright 2004 John W. Williams II.
Last update: 11/5/04; 8:31:44 PM.
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