British Science Week – ‘The Egg Drop Challenge’

It was an exciting week for students during Science Week 8^th -12^th March.

Students were given the task to build a “space shuttle” that would protect an egg from a free fall drop at 10 metres.

Students were provided with items including; sponges, straws, plastic cups, plastic bag, cellotape, bluetack, a sock, toothpicks & paper plates.

Students spent their first lesson designing and planning how they would build their shuttle. The common talking points that came up between students were; “how to protect the egg” “surface area for the landing” and the  “weight of the shuttle”.

Students built their shuttles with the equipment and items provided. The shuttles were dropped one at a time and students were then asked to answer these 4 questions.

1. What was the aim of the experiment?
2. What do you think will happen and what happened?
3. What was the thought process when building your shuttle?
4. How can your shuttle be improved?

After completing the questions student were given 1 final lesson to improve or/and redesign their shuttle after making observation notes from the first drop. Some students decided to start again and others altered their previous shuttle slightly.

This was a great experiment for our students to mark British Science Week.

https://www.britishscienceweek.org/