Egg Crash Lab Report

The purpose of the egg crash is to design, build, test, and evaluate a landing pad to protect an egg from the collision of a hard surface falling from various heights. An individual should be able to describe the collision in terms of changing momentum, impulse, impact force, and impact time. All moving objects have a quantity of motion, otherwise known as momentum. Momentum of a moving object can be found by multiplying the mass of the object by the velocity. Because mass is measured in kilograms and velocity is measured in meters per second, the unit for momentum is kilogram meters per second. Similar to velocity, acceleration, and force, momentum is also described by its direction along with its quantity. The momentum of an object will always be in the same direction of its velocity. Objects with a lot of momentum are hard to stop. Two football players of equal mass are traveling towards each other, one is moving at 6 meters per second, and the other is moving at 9 meters per second. The football player moving with the faster velocity (9
In a collision, a moving object experiences a force acting on it for a certain amount of time; this results in the change of momentum. The impulse can be found by the equation, Impulse=Force x Time. The most common use of impulse is used with the car airbag system. The airbags in cars work to reduce the damage to the people involved. The airbag works to increase the time needed to stop the momentum of the individual in the car. If the time is increased, the force of impact will decrease. Research shows that the mass of a car, rather than the size, is the leading factor in reducing the risk of fatality. In a report done testing this theory in 1992, Evans concludes, “Mass is the dominant causative factor in relationships between driver risk and car size in two-car crashes, with size, as such, playing at most a secondary role. Reducing car mass increases occupant risk” (Evans, 1992, p.