Egg parachute!

We have started our science topic of ‘Forces in motion’. We wanted to look at two forces in particular, gravity and air resistance. To do this we decided that we would try to make egg parachutes. We all decided that our materials for our parachutes would need to be sturdy but also light. Some pupils predicted that if they were big and wide then they would work better as they would capture more air resistance. Others thought that they had to be smaller so that they would not be too heavy!

 

We made our parachutes and then inserted our eggs into their containers, polystyrene cups. Mr Roberts then dropped them from a seven foot height and we watched the results. The black bin bag and kitchen roll parachutes carried the hard boiled eggs to the ground safely enough to avoid them cracking. These two had large surface areas and created more air resistance. The cotton cloth, tin foil and sandwich bag were all too small and they plummeted to the ground, cracking their eggs on landing!