Egg Drop...Soup?

…was more or less what our results resembled after our unsuccessful attempt at constructing an apparatus that was intended to prevent the egg from breaking when dropped from approximately 8 feet in air. Needless to say, this is an experiment that required resourceful planning, proper role delegation, and perhaps detailed blueprints with extensive calculations for the contraption itself (unfortunately, nobody in our group was a physics or engineering major.)

I think our group did the best we could given the resources we were provided with, and tried our best to comply with the planning process. I guess it’d be more concise if I evaluate our performance at each step of the process. Well, here goes nothing.

Step 1: Define your goals and objectives

Goal: Build a strong contraption using straws and tape to protect the egg from breaking

Objective: Plan and complete contraption within the allotted time

This was fairly easy, since our goal and objective were essentially defined for us already by Prof. K. The only thing we had to do in this step was determine how much time we can spend brainstorming and planning, and how much time we needed to build the contraption.

Step 2: Determine current status compared to objectives

We did a fairly decent job for this step, and followed diligently. The strengths of the group were immediately apparent. One member had worked on a farm, so he immediately came up with a design for the egg.

Surprisingly, one of my physical attributes that I was never really proud of came to be one of my strengths that I brought to the table for this very activity; and that is my height. Growing up, I was somewhat vertically challenged and always desired to be an inch or two taller, consequently I was the shortest member in the group which meant that my proximity to the floor was actually an advantage for us. Therefore, I became the designated “egg-dropper”

Step 3: Develop premises and several alternative strategies


We brainstormed several ideas and designs. Eventually we settled on a design that was more or less a combination of all the ideas that were submitted.

Step 4: Analyze alternatives and make tactical plan


At this point we didn't really have any alternatives as to what our apparatus would look like. We did, however, devise a strategic plan to allocate the materials (mainly the ONE pair of scissors) before the other groups. The member closest to the table where the scissors were located had to position her desk in at a calculated angle that would allow her to swiftly slide out of her desk and make two, no more than three, strides to the scissors and grab them before anyone else. Any preconceptions concerning running with scissors were most certainly abandoned during this activity; we were all willing to endanger an eyeball or finger for these 10 extra points on the exam.

Step 5: Implement plan and evaluate results


Time for action! The moment Prof K. said "go" everyone immediately scrambled with their supplies and began the construction that would hopefully buy them 10 points. Everyone was incredibly focused on how to properly build their contraption while still complying with the rules. Not everything went according to plan (does anything ever?) so we had to improvise. The straws were not as flexible as we had hoped, some areas were wrapped to tight, we had to be extremely frugal with the tape but yet worried that we hadn't used enough, last minute design changes, arguments erupted over these changes, etc. We were down to our last five minutes, by that time I was reassured that I had chosen the correct major of business, and not egg-protector-shield-design/architecture. These five minutes can only be described as pure chaos, every single group went on super speed to finish constructing their masterpiece. It was the last thirty seconds and we were still having trouble sticking the straws into the right places, everyone had to jump in and jam them into where they need to be...or just wherever possible.

Time's up.

Now for the moment of truth....


SPLAT


Oh well...better luck next time.