Project 1.1 Egg Drop

THE EGG DROP

Tasked to create a solution to protect an egg from a shoulder height drop upon impact I took to rubber bands as inspiration. This common house hold item offers tension, and a way to hold an egg that allows for movement and vibration absorption. In this blog post you will see three iterations of the direction I took utilizing these rubber bands to cushion the egg.

 

This first design idea used only alpaca fur and rubber bands. Alpaca was wrapped around the egg and stayed in place by rubber bands. The drop was successful and can be viewed in the video link below. I was inspired if I could push this direction more minimal and light weight focusing on utilizing more of the tension of the rubber bands as cushioning rather than just securement.

EGG DROP ITERATION 1

The second iteration involved the rubber bands wrapping around craft sticks to create an environment inside for the egg. I filled the space with cotton balls before squeezing the egg in. The idea was to have cushion surrounded by walls that had give and movement in them. The idea was successful, however the build could use improvement. Upon dropping the weight distribution caused the device to fall on the craft sticks that were only secured through tension causing one of them to pop out. The egg survived but if the craft sticks were secured in place would not have happened.

EGG DROP ITERATION 2

The last egg drop iteration I prototyped and tested involved no supplemental cushioning to the tension of the rubber bands. This was to test if I could really take away all that bulk and still support a fragile egg from a 5ft drop. The supplies used were craft sticks, foam core and rubber bands. The rubber bands were placed diagonally on the structure crossing over each other to be able to work the egg into a network of bands surrounding it. The egg survived the drop. During the fall the craft sticks once again shifted moving the egg out of place. This would be something I would want to revise but the rubber bands absorbed enough of the impact keeping the egg in the structure utilizing just tension.

EGG DROP ITERATION 3