Bungee Egg Challenge

How do you determine if an egg will survive a drop from a given height suspended inside a container? Do you know what forces develop, how much the egg can handle, where the best place to position the egg is inside a container, how much the chords will stretch, or how fast energy is dissipated? With this app you can show students how physics and engineering principles can be used to answer these questions. You can simplify a very exciting but advanced problem down into understandable concepts.

This app provides students in grades 9 thru college with an authentic experience in the use of technology and engineering. Students can assemble and assimilate science and technology to do realistic designs for their egg drop containers using an elegant but easy to run computer simulation within the app.

The well-tested lessons and lab plans included to use with the software show students how to conduct tests to determine the stretching and internal friction characteristics present in likely chord suspension materials. Doing off-line tests give students an appreciation of how important it is to take careful scientific measurements and how these measurements can be used. It is up to the students to decide which chord materials to use to suspend their egg inside a container, and where to position the egg; and then to input those properties and measurements into the computer. With the information they provide, the software will simulate what happens to the egg inside the dropped container when it impacts the ground. By being able to make predictions, students can work to modify and optimize their designs so that their egg will be a surviver when they build their design and test it for real. Everyone will be quite impressed!