All over the United States, students are dropping fresh eggs from terrifying heights with the aim of furthering their education. It's happening in all states, at all ages. It may even be happening in other countries, but no one bothers to check.

The Concept

The Annual Egg Drop is a yearly competition at many places of learning, typically held in the spring. There are unique particulars to each contest, but in general the idea is to put an egg in some sort of protective device and drop it from a height of 20 feet or so (~6.5 m). Some have restrictions on floating mechanisms (parachutes or wings or such).

The scoring process usually involves a complicated formula. It may involve the weight of the protective device, the time elapsed from release to impact, the accuracy of landing at a specified target, the number of parts making up the protective device, and the number of parts making up the egg after impact.

Creation and critiquing of devices can be an intense lesson in aerodynamics, mechanical engineering, and ingenuity. Rubberbands tend to proliferate and disappoint in turn. Paper cups disappear from the dining hall at alarming rates. Garbage bins are overturned.

Art versus Science

In general, to win one must make a very lightweight, sturdy device and pray to the chicken gods. There are alternatives to securing a cash prize, however. A Stylistic Award is usually offered, developed out of sympathy for entrants who had really creative, intricate, or pretty devices that failed utterly.

Sparkly devices do well in this category. Silver streamers, puffs of glitter at impact. Devices modelled after favored professors.

One such ingenious device was a watermelon. A hole cut into its side, a little hollow was dug out to cradle the fragile egg (secured in a Ziplock bag because egg does not mix with melon). The rind taped back in place, the watermelon was sheathed in plastic and carried up to the 3rd floor of the science building for weigh-in. It was hefty. Bad for scoring points. Much discussion about the protective value of watermelon flesh. The audience below was warned of impending descent. They wisely backed away. Drop... impact... splatter. Descent time was good. The plastic did not hold. The audience screamed for more. The scientist squished around in the pink remains, pulling out... an intact egg! The crowd goes wild! Watermelon for all!