Plan B

The outer structure. 

Hoping for different results from our previous experiment, our group thought long and hard about what design we could possibly use in order to ensure the survival of our egg. We came up with idea after idea, scrapped them and then did so all over again. Finally, running out of time, we decided to build something that would make the most out of our straws. We decided that it'd be best if we had an outer layer as well as an inner one to give our egg as much protection as possible. Our outer layer was a simple cube (or what was meant to look like a cube). 

Half of the inside structure.

Our inner layer took a bit more contemplation. Initially, we had just planned to attach the egg from each corner of the cube and secure it in the middle, but remembering that the same design had failed in the first experiment, we were hesitant towards using that method. Although we did still end up attaching the        egg in the middle, we did so in a way that the egg was secured by two layers that sandwiched the egg (as shown on the left) and then attached to the cube with multiple straws. By using all these straws to attach the egg to the cube, we could ensure that they all shared the brunt of the impact. This was also a very effective way to securely hold the egg in the middle of our cube. 

Completed structure.

Be strong little guy!

To the left is an image of our completed structure. Since we had a few extra straws we had not used, we decided to cut them up into pieces and use them as legs on each of the corners. Though we knew this wouldn't do too much for the survival of our egg, we decided we could use all the help that we could get.

All that was left was to keep our fingers crossed and hope our egg would survive. 

AND THE MOMENT OF TRUTH ...

Happy to be alive!

Egg Lander

Design

The design for our egg lander was a relatively simple one. Our goal was to use the straws and wrap the egg in such a way that it would take the least amount of impact. When doing so, we did not want the egg to be wrapped in a rigid casing, knowing that the straws would not take the brunt of the impact and the egg would easily crack. After some contemplation, we decided to build our structure out of alternating triangularly shaped straws. We found that this created a base that was was not rigid, but rather had some bounce to it. This meant that the straws itself would take most of the impact, making it more likely that the egg would survive the fall.

Once done with the base, we were stumped on how to continue. We concluded that our best course of action was to simply wrap the remaining surface of the egg with exactly the same design used for the base. When finished with that however, we were met with yet another problem. Knowing that the bottom of the structure was the only place that could really handle the entirety of the impact, we now had to come with with a way to ensure that our egg lander would land bottom first. Agreeing that we should put the newspaper to use, we built something that resembled the shape of a badminton shuttlecock. Once we attached that to the top of our structure, all that was left was to keep our fingers crossed and hope that our egg would survive.

Top of the lander on the left, base of lander on the right.

Results

R.I.P :'(

Unfortunately, our egg did not survive the fall. Although the egg did land bottom first as planned, our structure was not able to protect it from the impact and the egg plummeted to it's death. I believe that our structure did not work because we did not take the weight of the egg into account. In addition, we underestimated exactly just how much force the egg would have to withstand from its drop.

Modifications

There were several modifications that we could have made in order to help ensure the safety of our egg:

• Modify our design so that the sides are protected just as well as the bottom.
• Perhaps have a separate outer layer to increase the amount of time of impact, decreasing the amount of impact the egg would have to withstand.

Hopefully I can use everything I learned from this first egg lander to my advantage when building the second (hopefully successful) lander.