1. The Lincoln Center Saturday School: December 11, 2010 Egg Drop: Can you engineer a device to save a life? (Well, an egg, but you know what we mean).

2. Your Job You will work with a partner of your choice from your homeroom You may bring whatever supplies you would like from home You will construct your “egg protection device” from materials that you bring and from provided materials

3. The Objective Keep the egg from breaking!

4. To accomplish this objective: We desire to minimize the force that the egg experiences upon impact. We can begin to quantify this force by examining some fundamental laws of gravity and momentum as laid out by Isaac Newton.

5. Newton’s Law The Second Law of Motion relates force, acceleration, and the rate of change of momentum as follows: F = ma = d(mv) dt

6. Components of the formula F represents force m represents mass a represents acceleration v represents velocity t represents time

7. Momentum The product of mass and velocity is momentum. Newton’s Second Law states that force is directly related to an object’s rate of change of momentum.

8. Braking The more quickly we decelerate, the larger the force we experience.

9. What’s a g? Assuming that the mass of the object does not change, we can divide through by the mass to show that the acceleration is equal to the time rate of change of the velocity. Typically, this acceleration is expressed in g’s where 1g is the acceleration (or gravity, 9.8 m/s2 ) on Earth.

10. How to get the egg’s velocity to remain constant When dropped, the egg is accelerated by gravity. When the air resistance (the force experienced when placing one’s hand out in a strong wind), which increases with increasing velocity, equals gravity, the egg’s velocity will remain constant.

11. To protect your egg Decrease the velocity of the falling egg Cushion the egg to reduce the force of the impact

12. For Tuesday

13. To Do Today Select your partner for construction—they must be in this room Brainstorm a list of ways to slow the egg in flight and cushion it on landing Brainstorm a list of possible materials that could be used Start bringing your materials to school beginning tomorrow