Project, not eggs, a smashing success

McHenry County College students in the Materials of Industry course in the Academy for High Performance recently performed an "egg drop" project in a college corridor.

These students are working toward an associate in applied science degree in Manufacturing Management.

They placed fresh eggs in containers they designed and dropped their eggs from a 17-foot landing to see if their cargo would survive the fall.

Each team of three dropped their container three times. The results were: four out of five containers passed all three drops; one container passed one drop, but broke on the second and third drops.

The final contest was to throw their container against the wall and only two out of the five remained intact -- the rest broke inside the container and one splattered on the floor.

Cindy Vazquez of McHenry constructed two containers, including one that was disqualified because it was made with flammable material. Her egg survived all three drops when encased in thick sponge stuffed inside a peanut butter jar.

"The more the stuffing the better," she said.

Chris Rader of Crystal Lake said, "I knew our (container) was going to pass the test. It was filled with ballistics gel made from unflavored Knox gelatin and water. The gel hardened forming a cushion around the egg. I learned how to experiment with different materials."

Kim Kaecker of Woodstock said the project taught her one important lesson. "I learned to think outside the box, especially because we couldn't use regular packing materials," she said.

She consulted with techs at her workplace at Covidien in Crystal Lake who suggested that she fill an empty sharps container with thick foam. It worked.

According to instructor Heather Zaccagnini, the purpose of the project was to help students understand the physical properties of materials. Students visited databases on the Internet, selected materials and had to identify what and where they can find the materials they used.

"A big focus this year was placed on the manufacturability of the containers and the cost to mass produce them if this was a real product," Zaccagnini said.

"The students did an excellent job creating containers that were easily re-loadable and reusable."