[MikkiNe]

This year I'm a junior and in AP physics we have a month to build a shelter for an egg and were going to drop things 1m high on it (yeah he reversed it). My teacher came up with a formula to calculate who the winner is which deals with how much mass was dropped and the number of trials the egg made it crack free.

Here's the thing we can only use:
- Paper
- String fiber (no metals allowed)
- Small quantities of White glue
- Flat toothpicks

Also there's a bunch of rules such as the egg can't touch the sides of the shelter has to be 20x20x20, the weight has to be a brick or some kind of metal.

I have no idea where to even start cause when I just think of toothpicks I was lik =_=, any of you have idea's?

[ChunJin]

The reason why an egg will break is due to "jerk" the change in acceleration; aka the impulse from an impact.

To decrease this you have a lot of options - increase time for deceleration by "absorbing" the force like a spring. Another option is to deflect the force =).

[achu]

you first have to consider whether the egg will be a single entity with the drop shelter, or not.
if it is not, then inertia will cause the egg to move at the same velocity even when the drop shelter has been stopped by the ground.

work on maximizing the area that the egg will experience pressure.(N/m^2)
i can envision using the toothpicks as a bed. imagine a circle (the egg) inscribed into a square (the toothpick bed). any force to oppose inertia will have 4 locations to do so - one at each point where the circle touches the square.
of course the bed and egg have to be suspended and not touching the bottom of the shelter.

thats where the string and glue can come in useful. i guess you could attach the strings at each corner of the bed and then glue those strings to the top of the shelter.

papers can be turned into springs by folding back to back (a spring in theory will always produce force in the direction opposite to the force which disturbed equilibrium in the first place, but the object must be attached to the spring for the theory to work, ours doesnt but we can work around that)
--> if the folded paper/spring is underneath the egg when dropped, the paper will act to oppose inertia since it is in between the ground and the egg. the restoring force (the force that opposes inertia in this case) will be the same as if you simply dropped the egg. however, this force is exerted over a longer period of time, so the impulse should be significantly less.

i also thought of using folded paper (which is glued to both the toothpick bed and the ceiling of the shelter, so the theory of springs will work) as a spring to suspend the toothpick bed.
same concept as the spring i mentioned earlier.

good luck.
oh ya. if the shelter isnt dropped flat onto the ground, but lands on its corner or something, all of what i said can be put to waste.

[MikkiNe]

^ Good idea, I was thinking the same with the "bed" for the egg but not the spring parts The shelter is gonna stand on the ground already and we just have to drop a weight ontop of it from 1 m

[achu]

The shelter is gonna stand on the ground already and we just have to drop a weight ontop of it from 1 m

OH.
totally missed that part.