This report is mostly for my lab partners, but I figured if I’m going through the trouble of documenting this process I might as well blog it.

Ok, so first experiments obtained mixed results. I basically piled 3 sponges, egg, and another sponge tied together with some elastics. First attempt was successful, second not so much, and the throw test wasn’t even attempted.

Next I thought it would be important to increase distance (time) of impact and added some more cloths, and while this increased success, there were still instabilities and the wall test was an epic failure. (I have video of all this but since it was a failure it’s really not that interesting.)

So after some dinner I started thinking about waterbottles and containers absorbing the shock and isolating that shock from the egg using the sponges. Hence, Prototype 3. Prototype 3A utilized a plastic-wrapped egg. (It took me a few broken eggs to realize that mess-reduction is an unlisted requirement!) Prototype 3B photos have been attached. Drop tests sounded bad but really turned out quite well. The egg was in good condition, and a good throw at the side of my house survived well, even after a good hit on a picnic table and roll in the snow. The key is simply to keep the sponges moist otherwise it will undoubtedly fail.