Egg Drop From Space

Summary

In an ambitious project, the script details an attempt to break the world's tallest egg drop record by sending an egg to space and returning it safely to Earth. The team's plan involved attaching an egg to a rocket, which would be carried by a weather balloon to the stratosphere. After reaching a certain altitude, the rocket would detach, free-fall, and use a combination of fins, a parachute, and airbags to ensure the egg's safe landing. Despite multiple setbacks and failures, the team learns from each attempt, applies NASA-inspired engineering principles, and ultimately succeeds in not only protecting the egg but also landing it safely twice over, showcasing resilience and creative problem-solving.

Takeaways

• 🚀 The goal of the egg drop competition is to design a contraption that can protect a raw egg from breaking when dropped from a significant height.
• 🌌 The original plan was to drop an egg from the world's tallest building, but the ambition escalated to outer space to 'future proof' the record.
• 🔢 The project involved calculating the terminal velocity of an egg, which is the maximum speed at which it falls without breaking due to air resistance, found to be around 75 miles per hour for an egg.
• 🛌 A mattress was tested and confirmed to be able to protect an egg even when dropped from beyond its terminal velocity, indicating the success of the first test.
• 🔧 The team collaborated with Joe from BPS Space, a self-taught engineer, to guide the rocket using movable tail fins towards a target mattress.
• 🐔 A fresh egg was sourced directly from a chicken, marking it as the first to potentially go supersonic.
• 🔄 Several launch attempts were made with various issues, including a GPS failure due to a metallic streamer interfering with the signal.
• 🔧 A coding error in the rocket's guidance system was identified and corrected after a failed attempt, demonstrating the iterative nature of engineering.
• 🔄 After multiple failures, a pivot was made to a desert location with a redesigned system inspired by NASA's Mars rover landing technology.
• 🎉 The final attempt resulted in success, with both the primary system using airbags and a redundant simple beach ball solution landing the eggs safely, showcasing resilience and problem-solving.

Q & A

What is the main objective of the egg drop competition described in the script?

The main objective of the egg drop competition is to build a contraption that can protect a raw egg from breaking when dropped from the tallest height possible.

Why did the team decide to take the egg drop challenge to outer space?

The team decided to take the egg drop challenge to outer space to future-proof the record, as humans are always building taller buildings on Earth.

What was the initial plan for the egg's journey to space and back?

The initial plan involved clamping an egg to the front of a rocket, attaching the rocket to a weather balloon, taking it up to space, releasing the balloon, using gravity to accelerate past Mach One, adjusting four fins for steering, and releasing the egg at 300 feet above the ground onto a mattress.

What is terminal velocity and how does it relate to the egg drop challenge?

Terminal velocity is the maximum speed at which an object falls when the force of Earth pulling it towards the ground balances with the pushback force from air molecules. For an egg, this speed tops out at 75 miles per hour, which is crucial for ensuring the egg doesn't break upon impact.

What was the purpose of the first trip to Gridley, California?

The purpose of the first trip to Gridley was to conduct a flight characterization test at a low altitude of 10,000 feet to prove they could steer the rocket using the fins before taking the balloon all the way up to space.

Who is Joe and what was his role in the project?

Joe is a self-taught engineer with a channel called BPS Space, known for landing a launched rocket SpaceX style. He was in charge of tracking and guiding the rocket to the mattress using movable tail fins.

What was the purpose of the metallic streamer added to the rocket?

The metallic streamer was added to the back of the rocket to make it easier to visually track during the launch.

What was the issue with the GPS unit during the first launch attempt?

The metallic streamer interfered with the GPS signal, causing the rocket's math to be incorrect in calculating its speed, which led to the premature release of the egg.

What was the problem encountered with the rocket's trajectory during the second launch attempt?

The balloon was rising at a slower rate than anticipated, which threw off the predicted trajectory, causing the team to manually drop the rocket.

What was the critical oversight made during the integration of the two systems on the rocket?

The critical oversight was not accounting for the bending moment that would occur due to the rocket's length and weight, which could potentially cause structural failure at high speeds.

What changes were made to the design after the failure of the initial attempts?

The team scrapped the old design and built a new system inspired by the Curiosity Mars landing, with a three times longer and four times heavier rocket, fixed fins, a two-stage separation, and cushioning airbags for landing.

What was the role of the redundant systems in the final launch attempt?

The redundant systems served as a backup plan. They included a custom beach ball with a second egg and a 20-foot streamer for a simple, direct drop, as well as a second parachute made from a piece of the Curiosity rover's parachute.

What was the unexpected issue that caused the final launch to fail?

The unexpected issue was that the cord attaching the rocket and beach ball to the balloon got wrapped around and tightened due to spinning, which pulled down on the balloon's self-destruct string, causing it to come down prematurely.

How did the team ensure the egg would not freeze during the ascent to space?

They ran vacuum and temperature tests on a raw egg and used heaters in the egg chamber to prove that they could keep the egg warm enough during the two-hour ascent to space.

What was the significance of the 'lucky orange parachute' used in the project?

The 'lucky orange parachute' was a piece of the parachute used by the Curiosity rover to land on Mars. It was repurposed for the egg drop project, symbolizing good luck and the connection to Mars landing technology.

What was the final outcome of the egg drop challenge after multiple attempts?

After multiple attempts and learning from each failure, the team successfully landed two uncracked eggs, one using the main payload with airbags and the other using the simple beach ball backup solution.