Carolina Stem Challenge®: Egg Drop Kit, Materials for 15 Lab Groups

Carolina Stem Challenge®: Egg Drop Kit, Materials for 15 Lab Groups

Grades 6-12 Protect the falling egg while exploring energy conservation, collision forces, momentum, and Newton's laws Create a device to absorb the force from an initial 1-m drop and then design a final model that achieves the highest drop distance Materials support 15 design teams. Description Students learn about momentum, collisions, impulse, and stopping force as they address the engineering challenge, How can a container be built to protect fragile cargo during a collision? Teams start by building cubic, triangular, and cylindrical egg containers, dropping them from increasing heights while evaluating their effectiveness at protecting an egg from damage. Students apply what they have learned to achieve the highest drop in which the egg remains intact, competing in one of 4 design challenges: Single Drop, Three Sides Drop, Limited Mass Drop, or Limited Volume Drop. The activity concludes by entering all the reengineered egg protectors into a classroom competition. Time Requirement Total, 210 minutes. Teacher prep, 30 minutes. Background, prototyping, and the design challenge, 105 minutes. Assessment and presentation, 75 minutes. Performance Expectation(s) HS-PS2-2 HS-PS2-3 Crosscutting Concepts Structure and Function Disciplinary Core Ideas HS.PS2.A: Forces and Motion Science and Engineering Practices Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions Learning Objectives Compare the effectiveness of containers of various shapes at protecting a dropped egg. Apply the concepts of momentum and force to brainstorm ideas for the design of an egg container. Build and test a protective container for a dropped egg. Prerequisite Knowledge and Skills Prior knowledge of momentum, collisions, and Newton's third law are useful.