egg drop experiment inertia

Egg Drop Inertia Challenge

Demonstrate gravity, motion, and other forces with this incredible science trick.

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The egg drop is one of my all-time favorite science demonstrations. It’s a combination of strategy, skill, and just a little luck. The goal is to get an egg to drop into a glass of water. Sound easy enough? Did I mention that the egg is perched high above the water on a cardboard tube and that a pie pan sits between the tube and the water? Still think it’s easy? Sir Isaac Newton does. Once you try it, you’ll be hooked!

Experiment Videos

Here's What You'll Need

Large eggs (buy a dozen because you need the practice), cardboard tube from an empty roll of toilet paper, metal pie pan, pitcher of water, large drinking glass, oh, you might need a few paper towels to clean up your practice mess, tray (optional), coloring tablets (optional), let's try it.

Pick a sturdy table or counter surface to perform the demonstration. Fill the drinking glass about three-quarters full with water and center the pie pan on top of the glass. Place the cardboard tube vertically on the pie pan, positioning it directly over the water. Carefully set the egg on top of the cardboard tube.

Explain to your audience that the goal is to get the egg into the glass of water, but you’re not allowed to touch the egg, the cardboard tube or the glass of water. The only thing left for you to touch is the pie pan. What would you need to do to move the pie pan and cardboard tube out of the way in order for the egg to fall into the glass of water? That’s right . . . you’re going to invoke Sir Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion and smack the pie pan out of the way. Don’t do it just yet . . . read the next step.

Stand directly behind the Egg Drop setup. If you’re right handed, hold your right hand straight out like you were going to karate chop something. Position your hand about 6 inches away from the edge of the pan. The idea is to hit the edge of the pie pan with enough force to knock the cardboard tube out from under the egg. Gravity will do the rest as the egg falls directly into the glass of water.

Shoot both hands up high over your head in celebration of your latest science miracle.

How Does It Work

Credit for this one has to go to Sir Isaac Newton and his First Law of Motion . Newton said that objects in motion want to keep moving and objects that are stationary want to stay still—unless an outside force acts on them. So, since the egg is not moving while it sits on top of the tube, that’s what it wants to do—not move. You applied enough force to the pie pan to cause it to zip out from under the cardboard tube (there’s not much friction between the surface of the pan and the water container). The edge of the pie pan hooked the bottom of the tube, which then sailed off with the pan. Basically, you knocked the support out from under the egg. For a brief nanosecond or so, the egg didn’t move because it was already stationary (not moving). But then, as usual, the force of gravity took over and pulled the egg straight down toward the center of the Earth.

Also, according to Mr. Newton’s First Law, once the egg began moving, it didn’t want to stop. The container of water interrupted the egg’s fall, providing a safe place for the egg to stop moving so you could recover it unbroken. The force of gravity on the egg caused the water to splash out, and the audience burst into spontaneous applause.

Take It Further

Try testing longer cardboard tubes from a roll of paper towel, different size glasses or different size eggs. Do small eggs work as well as jumbo eggs?

The true Egg Drop connoisseur will never be content with a single egg falling into a single glass. The temptation is just too great to push the envelope and find a way to position two eggs, side by side, and attempt a drop. When it works (and it will), you’ll discover that two eggs just aren’t enough. After searching day and night for weeks on end (or maybe you’ll just find one lying around the house), you’ll find the perfect tray to hold three cardboard tubes and three eggs. It’s no longer a science experiment . . . it’s an obsession with the law of inertia and gravity. Wake the kids, phone the neighbors—this is going to be something special.

Safety Information

WARNING! IMPORTANT SAFETY RULES Always wash your hands well with soap and water after handling raw eggs. Some raw eggs contain salmonella bacteria that can make you really sick!

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This is an egg-stremely simple experiment to set up and is a fun way to demonstrate the principles of gravity, motion and inertia.  As well as the items listed below you will need steady nerves for this egg-citing activity.

What you’ll need for egg drop project

To begin with fill the glass approximately two thirds full of water

Place the paper plate on top.

Next, stand the cardboard tube on its end in the middle of the plate.

Rest an egg in the cardboard tube at the top.

You are now ready!  Give the edge of the plate a firm hit with the palm of your hand to knock it off the top of the glass.

You may be worried that the egg will fly across the room along with the plate and cardboard tube making a horrible mess but miraculously the egg falls straight down into the water.

Science Explained

Newton’s first Law of Motion says that if something is sitting still (like an egg in a cardboard tube) then it will stay still unless something else tries to move it – this describes the principle of inertia.

There is not much friction at all between the plate and the rim of the glass so it does not take much power from your hand to knock it and the tube off.

For a split second the egg will continue to stay still (because of its inertia) and then gravity takes effect and the egg falls straight down into the glass.

Taking It Further

If you are feeling more adventurous why not try lining up two or three glasses together and see how many eggs you can get to fall simultaneously. 

What happens if you try balancing other things on top of the tube like a coin resting on a postcard?

Once you have mastered this trick you can make it even more exciting for your friends by using different coloured water or you can tell them the last time you did this everyone in the audience was covered in egg!

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Drop an Egg to Prove The First Law of Motion

Newton’s first law of motion states that objects have the tendency to retain its motion or the lack of.

If a body is at rest, it has the tendency to remain at rest; If a body is moving, it tends to keep moving in a straight line at a constant speed.

This is also called the law of inertia.

Inertia is an object’s tendency to stay at rest, or keep moving until an external force is applied to change it.

Let’s do an inertia experiment.

We are using plastic eggs, but you can use real eggs to do this, too.

It was so much fun that my kid wanted to do it again and again.

Egg Drop Inertia

Here it is, a fun egg drop experiment.

• egg, I used a plastic easter egg, but you can certainly use a real one :)
• empty toilet paper roll
• an unbreakable pan with a raised edge or a shallow plastic container
• a glass big enough for the egg
• tray (optional: to catch the broken egg if you use real eggs and don't succeed on first try)
• adult supervision

Instructions

• Place the glass on a sturdy table.
• (Optional) If a real egg is used, fill the glass with water. Otherwise, an empty glass is fine.
• Center the pan on top of the glass.

• In one quick move, knock the pan sideway off the glass.
• Observe the egg fall directly into the glass.

Did you try this project?

Follow us on Pinterest and share a photo!

Why does the egg fall right into the glass while the paper roll and the pan flies sideways?

This can be explained by Sir Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion , which states that an object at rest remains at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same velocity  (speed and direction) unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

Because the egg is not moving at the beginning, it wants to stay that way.

When the pan is knocked off by you hand, its raised edge in turn knocks off the paper roll.

When the support of the egg is removed, gravity applies a net downward force that pulls the egg straight down.

The egg then drops right into the glass.

Try the experiment again using

• paper rolls of different lengths.
• different types of support for the egg.
• different objects on top of the paper roll.

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Museum at Home: Egg Drop Inertia

In this  experiment courtesy of Steve Spangler Science , your family will discover how gravity makes saving a falling egg easier than it sounds!  You'll demonstrate gravity, motion, and other forces while wowing your kids with this science trick. 

The Egg Drop is a classic science demonstration that illustrates Newton's Laws of Motion, namely inertia. The challenge sounds so simple—just get the egg into the glass of water, but there are a few obstacles. The egg is perched high above the water on a cardboard tube, and a pie plate sits between the tube and the water.

Still think it's easy? Sir Isaac Newton does.

• Cardboard tube
• A large drinking glass
• Tray (optional)
• Coloring Tablets (optional)
• Fill the large drinking glass about three-quarters full with water.
• Center a pie pan on top of the glass.
• Place the cardboard tube on the pie plate, positioning it directly over the water.
• Carefully set the egg on top of the cardboard tube.
• With your writing hand, smack the edge of the pie pan horizontally. Don't swing up, and don't swing down! It’s important that you hit the pie pan horizontally and use a pretty solid hit, so plan on chasing the plate and tube.
• Your astonished guests will watch the egg plop nicely into the water. It’s even more fun to watch someone else try to drop the egg.

What's going on:

Also, according to Mr. Newton’s First Law, once the egg was moving, it didn’t want to stop. The container of water interrupted the egg’s fall, providing a safe place for the egg to stop moving so you could recover it unbroken. The gravity-pushed egg caused the water to splash out. Did someone get wet?

Take It Further

• Add coloring to the water in your egg drop for added effect.
• Try testing longer tubes, more or less water, different liquids in the glass, different water containers, and heavier or lighter falling objects. 
• Worried about the potential mess? You can also try this with a cup, an index card, and a penny!

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The Incredible Inertial Egg Drop! (Physics)

• Posted on 24 March 2020
• By Hema and Eric Bulmer
• Posted in inertia , newton , physics , video

Get ready to learn a trick that you'll master within 2 or 3 tries and amaze people with every time you do it. It's the Incredible Inertial Egg Drop! GREAT intro demonstration for Newton's 1st Law!

The Incredible Inertial Egg Drop!

Get ready to learn a trick that you'll master within 2 or 3 tries and amaze people with every time you do it. It's the Incredible Inertial Egg Drop! GREAT intro demonstration for Newton's 1st Law! Keep reading below the graphic for some content & extension info.

Experigraphic

What's Going On?

Newton's First Law of Motion (the Law of Inertia) says that objects at rest tend to stay at rest unless acted upon by a force. That's why this works - the egg has significantly more inertia than either the bowl or the tube, and is therefore much more difficult to stir from rest. When you apply force to the bowl, the tube is knocked out by the bowl's wall, but the egg's inertia keeps it at rest until it is acted upon by an outside force - namely, Gravity, which pulls it straight down into the waiting glass of water.

1. You might go through an egg or two while getting this one down pat. I suggest putting your entire set-up onto a tray during your learning period. That way, any broken eggs will be on the tray for easier clean-up.

Practice hitting the side of the bowl with just enough force to knock it and the toilet paper tube out, but be careful of too much follow through - you do NOT want your hand to be under the falling egg!

Keep the force of your strike perpendicular to the glass - in other words, hit it sideways - no upward or downward force!

Extension Idea

Start with a Toilet Paper Roll. When you're confident and hitting that every time, try moving up to a paper towel roll!

© Hema and Eric Bulmer. All rights reserved.

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• Science Fair Project Ideas for Kids, Middle & High School Students ⋅

The Science Behind the Egg Drop Experiment

Instructions for an Egg Drop Science Fair Project

The Egg Drop is a classic science class experiment for middle school or high school students. Students are given an egg to drop from a high point (such as the roof of the school) onto a hard surface (such as the parking lot). They must design a carrier for the egg to house it during the drop. Typical carriers are milk cartons or shoeboxes. The students can modify the carrier by adding wings, parachutes, foam interiors or even marshmallow cushions. The students form hypotheses about which of the egg carriers will effectively protect the egg and then test those hypotheses. The experiment is not just for fun -- although students do enjoy it. It is intended to teach students about the relationships between force and momentum.

Newton's Laws of Motion are the basic principles illustrated in the egg drop experiment. Sir Isaac Newton published his Laws of Motion in 1687 and fundamentally altered scientists' understanding of the world by describing the relationship between force and motion. The first of these laws is referred to as The Law of Inertia. In basic terms, an object that is in motion will stay in motion unless an external force acts upon it, and an object at rest will stay at rest unless an external force acts upon it.

In Newton's Second Law, he discusses the direct relationship between the external forces acting upon an object and the object's change in momentum. The force increases as the time required for the change decreases. If a train is moving along at a steady pace and needs to decelerate, the force experienced by the passengers will be greater as the time for deceleration is shorter.

The objective of the egg drop experiment is to keep the egg from breaking as it decelerates. It becomes clear from Newton's Laws that in order to minimize the force experienced by the egg at impact, students designing the egg carriers must increase the time over which the egg is brought to rest or decrease the egg's velocity at the time of the crash.

The Carrier

In order to decrease the egg's velocity upon impact, students must design their egg carriers to have increased air resistance. An increased surface area on the carrier, such as a flying disc shape or a parachute, will cause the egg to hit the ground at a lower speed. To increase the time over which the egg comes to rest, students must provide their egg with something to absorb some of the force of impact. A sponge or other cushion in their carrier will keep the egg from stopping instantly when it hits the ground; the egg will continue its motion for a few nanoseconds, decreasing the force. From this experiment, students also learn to form and test hypotheses and write up their observations in an organized way.

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Egg Drop Project

This is the classic egg drop experiment. Students try to build a structure that will prevent a raw egg from breaking when dropped from a significant height. They should think about creating a design that would reduce the amount of energy transferred from potential to kinetic energy on the egg shell. Some ways to do this would be to decrease the final speed of the egg using air resistance, increasing the time of the collision using some sort of cushion, transferring the energy into something else, or whatever else they can think of!

Each group of students gets the following:

• 2 small paper cups
• 1 sq ft of cellophane
• 4 rubberbands
• 4 popsickle sticks
• 2 ft of tape
• 1 egg (not provided)

Subjects Covered

• Energy Conservation

Provided by requester

• One egg for each student group
• Floor covering (Ex: Newspaper, Tarp)

Provided by us

• Small paper cups
• Rubberbands
• Popsickle sticks

Physics Behind the Demo

The Egg hitting the ground is a collision between the Earth and the Egg. When collisions occur, two properties of the colliding bodies are changed and/or transferred: their Energy and Momentum . This change and transfer is mediated by one or many forces . If the force is too strong, it can cause the shell of the egg to crack and break.

Momentum Transfer and Impulse (no Calculus)

Starting with the definition of Force a and knowing that acceleration is just the change in velocity over the change in time

$$ \textbf{F}=ma=m\cdot{\frac{\Delta v}{\Delta t}} $$

If we move the $\Large \Delta t $ to the left side of the equation we can see how Force is related to momentum

$$ \textbf{F} \cdot{\Delta t}=m \cdot{\Delta v}$$

This means that the Force multiplied by the change in time, or duration of a collision, is equal to the mass multiplied by the change in velocity. Momentum (p) is defined as the mass multiplied by the velocity so the right side is the change in momentum. This change in momentum is the Impulse ( J )

$$ \textbf{J}= \textbf{F} \cdot{\Delta t}=\Delta \textbf{p}$$

a: In this case we are actually talking about the average force, but to keep things simple we will just call it the force.

Momemtum Transfer and Impulse (Calculus)

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Egg Drop Experiment

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Would you dare place an egg on top of a tower and then make the tower collapse under the egg to make the egg fall!? Call us crazy, but that is exactly what we did in this Egg Drop Experiment and the result was pretty cool!

Find more Egg Experiments For Kids here!

The best thing about this nerve-racking egg dropping experiment is that it makes learning about gravity and inertia both fun and educational for kids!

Table of Contents

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Supplies Needed:

• 1 Egg (Raw or boiled depending on how brave you are)
• Clear Glass Cup
• Plastic Plate
• Cardboard Toilet Paper Roll or Paper Towel Roll

Egg Drop Challenge

• Fill a clear glass cup about three-quarters full of water.
• Place a plastic or paper plate on top of the glass.
• Stand an empty cardboard toilet paper roll on the plate.
• Place an egg on the top of the cardboard roll.
• Quickly but carefully knock the plate out from under the cardboard tube and egg.
• Watch and enjoy as the egg falls straight down into the water-filled cup!
• Repeat the steps again but this time make a bigger tower by replacing the toilet paper roll with a paper towel cardboard roll.

Step 1: Pour Some Water Into a Glass

To get started you need to grab a tall cup or glass and fill it about 3/4 of the way full of water. If you fill the glass with too much water then you will end up with a lot of water to clean up when the egg splashes into the glass.

If you do not add very much water, then you run the risk of the egg breaking open when it lands in the cup after the tower collapses.

It’s also a good idea to use a clear glass cup to make it easy to see the egg when in crashes into the cup. If you don’t have a clear glass though you can substitute for any other tall cup.

Step 2: Set a Plastic Plate on Top of The Glass

After filling the glass with some water, place a plastic plate on top of the water-filled cup. You can also use a metal pan for this, but it is very important not to use a glass plate or anything breakable for this part!

Make sure to center the middle of the plate directly over the glass of water. This plate will be the platform for the tower we are going to build next.

Step 3: Place a Cardboard Toilet Paper Roll on the Plate

Using a cardboard roll from an empty roll of toilet paper, stand it up on the plate that is over the cup of water.

Again, you want to make sure the carboard cylinder is directly in the middle of the plate and centered over the glass of water below.

Step 4: Set an Egg on Top of the Cardboard Roll

Now it’s time to grab an egg and carefully set it on the very top of your tower you created using the glass of water, plate, and cardboard tube.

The egg should be large enough to sit on the top of the carboard tube without falling through the inside of the tube, but be very careful not to tip the tube over while placing the egg on top.

This experiment will work with either a raw egg or a boiled egg. It is up to how brave you are feeling if you want to risk the experiment going wrong and having a raw egg breaking open on you or not!

Step 5: Knock the Plate Out From Under The Tube and Egg

This is honestly the scariest part, but it is also where the fun and excitement of this egg drop experiment begins!

Now that your tower is all put together with an egg sitting on the top, it’s time to knock the plate and carboard tube out from under the egg and see what happens to the egg.

Do you think the egg will fly off to the side in the direction of the plate and carboard tube it was sitting on, or will the end fall straight down and splash into the cup of water below!?

To find out the answer, gently but quickly knock the plate out from under the cardboard tube and the egg.

Whatever direction that you push the plate out of the way, make sure it’s not going to hit and break something else. This is why we use a plastic plate for this step!

Step 6: The Egg Will Fall Down into the Water Filled Cup

Watch and enjoy as the plate and cardboard tower fly off to the side, but the law of inertia and gravity work together to make the egg miraculously drop straight down and plop into the cup filled with water below!

You will probably notice a few splashes of water on the table from the impact of the egg dropping into the cup, but egg should remain unbroken in the cup of water!

Step 7: Do it Again, but Use a Paper Towel Roll To Make the Tower Taller

Since we had some success with our first try at this super cool egg drop experiment, its time to take to to the next level with a taller tower this time!

To do this, repeat the steps of building the tower on top of a glass-filled 3/4 of the way with water, but this time substitute the toilet paper cardboard tube for an empty paper towel tube.

This will make the tower about twice as tall as before and could make the egg drop challenge and bit more tricky!

Go ahead and place the egg on the tower, knock the plate out from underneath and see what happens to your egg as it falls from an even higher altitude than before!

If all goes well, then your egg should still fall straight down and land safely in the cup of water. The water will act as a cushion to the impact of the egg falling and should again keep your egg from cracking!

Egg Drop Experiment Explanation

This amazing egg drop experiment is only possible because of Newton’s law of inertia.

This law states that an object in a resting stage will stay in a resting stage or in uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by another force.

The egg on the top of our tower falls straight down into the cup of water because it was already sitting in a resting stage.

As my hand (another force) moved the plate and tower out from under the egg, the egg was pulled straight down into the cup thanks to gravity.

Even though the egg falls at an incredible speed, the water in the cup acts as a shock absorber and cushions the impact of the egg into the glass. This is what protects the egg and keeps it from cracking!

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More Fun Experiments For Kids:

• Cloud in a Bottle Experiment With Rubbing Alcohol
• How To Make An Ocean In A Jar
• Dancing Grapes Experiment

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more in Experiments

The egg drop challenge.

You will need:

• 1 plastic cup of water with a mouth wide enough to fit the egg.
• 1 10” (25 cm) piece of cardboard or a small tray with a SMOOTH bottom
• 1 cardboard tube (paper towel or toilet paper tubes work well)
• 1 Egg (uncooked for more drama)

What to do:

• Place the tray centered over the cup
• Place the tube on its end in the center of the tray
• Place the egg horizontally on the tube
• When ready, strike the tray hard enough with your palm to send the tray flying, but not so hard you hit the glass of water. If all goes well, the tray and paper tube will go flying, but the egg will safely drop into the water.

How does it work?

INERTIA describes an object in terms of how much energy is needed to move it or stop it from moving. Since the tray and tube are very low mass (lightweight,) they have very little inertia, and will easily move out of the way. The egg, however is heavier (has more inertia) and so it is not easily moved, leaving it in place for gravity to bring it down into the cup.

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Inertia: the Egg Drop

The above version requires Quicktime 7 To play a smaller version of the video, left-click here; to download the video, right-click here (PC) and "save link as" or control-click (Mac) and "save target as"

The Big Idea

An object in motion will stay in motion in a straight line unless acted on by an outside force. An object dropped from a moving vehicle will fall in an arc, continuing to move forward as it falls.

All matter has the tendency to continue doing what it is already doing - moving if it is moving, and staying at rest if it is at rest - unless it is acted on by an outside force. This property is an object's inertia , which comes from the Latin for "laziness." In this demonstration, as the chicken drops the egg, it continues forward even as it falls. You can see that the egg follows directly under the chicken's hand in the following stills:

Notice that relative to the car, the egg is falling straight down. Relative to the pan, however, the egg is falling in an arc, since it continues moving forward even as it is acted on by gravity. It only stops moving forward when it is acted on by the force of friction with the ground. Since the above images are framed around the car, it may be hard to imagine the "pan's" perspective. Take a look at the stills framed differently:

This is similar to a child tossing a ball up to himself while riding in a train. Relative to the child and the train, the ball is going straight up and down. Relative to an observer on the train platform, the ball is going up and down in forward arcs. The concept of relative motion allows us to understand how we see things around us as being stationary even as we are all hurtling through space at tremendous speeds; it also help explain why the sun seems to be moving overhead during the day, while in fact, the effect is the result of us spinning on our axis.

Materials and Set-up

This experiment is fun to do with a car, egg and frying pan, as it was done in the video, but it is just as effective in the classroom with a set of keys. Have a student run by an sheet of paper holding a set of keys at their waist. Their goal is to let go of the keys (just let go, not throw) in order to have them hit the paper. They will soon find that they need to let go before they get to the paper. Other students will see that the keys are falling in an arc; to the student running, the keys are falling straight down. The faster the student is running, the sooner he or she must let go in order to hit the target.

Safety Issues

If you choose to do this demonstration from a car, be sure to wear seatbelts and pay attention to other things that may be going on in the parking lot where you are laying your eggs.

Human Wonder Research ©2008 Jeff Goodman, Leslie Bradbury, and Joe Murphy

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Egg experiment to demonstrate inertia

A simple and effective practical demonstration of inertia using a spinning raw egg.

When the egg is spun its contents also spins.  Momentarily stopping the egg does not stop its contents from spinning.  On release the egg begins to spin again. The contents of the egg resist any change in its motion.

This could be developed by discussing how we utilise inertia, for example a flywheel on a bus to save energy.

Key words: inertia, spinning.

NC: Newtons laws of motion.  Understand what factors affect the moment of inertia.

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Egg inertia

Follow FizzicsEd 150 Science Experiments:

You will need

• One drinking glass, three-quarters full of water
• One sheet of newspaper
• One cardboard toilet roll
• One plastic tray or plate (This piece of equipment must cover the glass, be flat on the bottom and have a raised lip around the top)
• One egg (if a student has egg allergies you can change this to a water bomb instead)

• Instruction

Place the newspaper on the table, to stop the splashing water getting the table wet.

Place the glass of water in the middle of the newspaper.

Place the tray/plate on top of the glass, and stand the toilet paper roll on top of it. Note: Make sure the toilet paper roll is directly above the glass of water. We don’t want our egg to hit the table instead of the water!

“Ready for a karate chop!”

Add your egg on top of the toilet paper roll. Use a water bomb if there a egg allergies in the room.

Now for the tricky part. You need to very quickly knock the tray/plate sideways, using a kind of “sideways karate chop” technique. The tray will fly horizontally, and the raised lip on the edge will catch the toilet roll, and the egg should fall straight down into the water, and stay un-cracked!

Variation: Try this experiment without the water in the glass!

For a bit of fun at Easter, use chocolate eggs for the ‘egg-speriment’ instead 🙂

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Why Does This Happen

Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion says that an object that’s moving will continue to stay moving, and one that’s stationary will continue to stay still unless a new force is applied to it.

While the egg is balancing on the toilet roll, the egg isn’t moving and so it wants to remain that way. When you knock the tray sideways, you apply a force that moves it quickly out of the way. The raised lip on the tray transfers this force to the toilet roll and it too flies sideways. At this point, the egg is still stationary for just a split second, until gravity gets a hold of it and pulls it down into the glass.

This is the same principle that makes the classic magic trick, where a magician whips a tablecloth off a table leaving the crockery and cutlery still there, work.

Road safety application.

Inertia (the tendency of moving objects to stay moving) is critical to understand when you’re thinking about road safety. Without seatbelts in our cars, our bodies would keep moving forwards if our car stops suddenly, for example in a crash. The seatbelt applies a force to our bodies that slow them down, stopping us going flying. The same goes for loose objects that are hanging around in the back seat of your car – an unrestrained object can move forwards in a car crash and can become a projectile.

Variables to test

More on variables here

• How lightly can you hit the tray and still have the gg fall into the glass?
• Does this work if swap the egg out for a much heavier or lighter object?

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Weather Experiment: Inertia egg drop

GRAND RAPIDS — An egg drop challenge... a bit of a daring science trick we will see if we can complete! This experiment will teach us all about inertia. Here’s what you need to get started. - 1 glass cup - Water - Sturdy paper plate - Toilet paper roll - 1 raw egg

Step 1 – fill the cup ¾ pf the way full with water Step 2 – place the paper plate centered over the cup Step 3 – place the toilet paper roll on its end on the paper plate center over the cup Step 4 – place the egg horizontally on the tube Step 5 – when ready hit the paper plate strong enough to send it flying but not so strong that you knock over the cup of water…..watch what happens!

The egg drop challenge! Hopefully you successfully completed the challenge at home! Here’s whats happening with the science making this all possible. Its all about inertia. Inertia tells us how much energy an object needs to move it or stop it from moving. The paper plate and toilet paper roll in this challenge are low mass or lightweight so that gives them a low inertia and will easily move out of the way. The egg however has more mass or is heavier giving it higher inertia and will not easily move. These differences in inertia allows the egg to be left in place above the cup and have gravity take over and drop right into the water!

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