My Chinese Takeout Inspired Egg Drop Contest Entry

Tomorrow at work we are having an Egg Drop Contest as part of our festivities. (other activities include an egg hunt and game of Chubby Bunny. For those not familiar with the Egg Drop Experiment, it is a challenge to build a contraption that can contain a single raw egg and when dropped from a high distance can protect the egg from cracking.

I have participated in this experiment twice before. The first time was in 1984 when I was in 4th grade and I produced a shoebox filled with crumpled up newspaper and bubble wrap and it failed miserably. The second time was my freshman year at RISD and instead of dropping an egg from a building we had to get an egg down one of the famous steep streets of Providence RI. This, mind you was where ESPN hosted the street luge competition of the 1985 X Games so it was legit. Remind me another time to tell you about my rollerblading adventures and near-death experiences on that hill another time. I produced a contraption with wheels, rubber bands, and metal wires. It looked better than it functioned and I guess that was par for the course as a freshman in art school.

Ok, so tomorrow we are doing this contest at work and dropping eggs off our second floor balcony onto the sidewalk below. At first I wasn’t going to submit an entry but then I realized it was a contest and there were prizes so being the super-competitive person I am, I decided to enter. This event has specific rules:

“If you want to participate in the Egg Drop you need to make a vessel before Monday. The vessel cannot be larger than 6″x 6″x 6″ and the egg needs to be able to be placed in and out of the vessel once completed.”

So to recap: I’ve done this experiment twice and have failed twice. This time, I decided to take a different approach:
1. Keep it simple
2. Keep it light
3. Have a theme

Keep it simple.

Forget fancy and super technical contraptions. As long as I could create something that distributes the impact more evenly, the egg will not break. I created my box using only 4 materials and 1 of the 4 is only there for the theme (more on that later).

Keep it light.

In all (before egg), my vessel is only 2 ounces. Considering an average egg in shell weighs about 1.67 ounces I would say I have a pretty light vessel!

Have a theme.

This is where things got interesting. I knew I wanted to start with a name. I started playing around with the idea of my name, “Greg” and the word “Egg”. That led to the idea of “Greg Drop” which quickly developed into “Greg Drop Soup”. Being Chinese, this idea seemed perfect.

The Goal

My goal was to create a simple, light vessel to hold an egg AND, to fit the theme, make it look like egg drop soup in the process. I know this is corny but that’s how I operate so be patient 🙂

Here’s how I built my Chinese Takeout Inspired Egg Drop Contraption for my company egg drop contest:

I bought a red paper Chinese Takeout box for $0.47. I know, I know, you don’t put soup in a takeout box like this but sometimes, to fit a theme, you need to take some liberties and allow yourself to use objects for it’s iconic value.

Then I bought a shower sponge for $1.79. This will serve as the “egg drop” ingredient.

I found a bag of polyester fiberfill in my wife's sewing supplies. — I found a bag of polyester fiberfill in my wife’s sewing supplies. This will serve as the soup broth. I know, technically it’s not bright white but again, work with me here!

I used scissors to cut a small hole in the sponge

I slowly opened the incision to fit an egg inside. It was important to keep it tight.

I placed the sponge with egg inside in the takeout box.

Now for the scallions. I found some ribbon from our gift-wrapping box.

Then sprinkled them on top of the "soup". — Then sprinkled them on top of the “soup”.

Finally, I printed out a label and secured it with packing tape to strengthen the edges of the paper takeout box.

It may not look perfect but at least it fits the theme right?

Will it work?!!

Tomorrow, I will see if this thing not only looks good but achieves the goal of protecting the egg! I’ll update this post with the results tomorrow!

Update!

Today was the company Egg Drop Contest! I was feeling pretty good about my chances. The vessel was intact and after putting my egg inside it felt solid and stable. Now for the big moment! We got ready to drop it off the second floor balcony onto a muddy patch (normally grass) next to the sidewalk below.

The drop as seen from the street. Thanks to @jandrewsnc for the pic!

There were 4 contestants and we all survived the first round. The second round was from the same spot but we had to throw it up in the air and have it land on the sidewalk. I wanted my vessel to land on the bottom if possible. I threw it up in the air and it fell to the sidewalk landing with a small thud. As I ran downstairs I felt optimistic. Drumroll please….

:( :( — I was the only one that cracked. Oh well.

There’s always next year!

Gregory Ng

GOAL: Visit 100 National Parks as a family by 2020. Favorite Parks: Zion National Park, Mt Rainier National Park, Valley Forge National Historical Park

Comments

comments