re-(Egg Lander) [Sept.27]

the part of our egg lander

     Beginning:
      Given the second chances to fix the egg landers seems to build our confidence; however, it did not seem to work very well; at least, it was far from our imagination.

     We focused on using accordions to secure the egg. The spring-like accordion may reduce the pressure when dropped. In short, the accordions were supposed to absorb the big impact due to the gravity.

     It took us, Joyce, Xuelin, and me, a long time to come up with an idea, how to use the accordions effectively. Later, we bent a straw three times to make an accordion, and three accordions formed a triangle spring. This triangle spring was one part (or the top part) of our egg lander (as shown in the picture). After we finished the second half of the structure which was the base, we squeeze the top and the base in order to secure the egg, using tape to tight them. We also protected the sides with six accordions.

Results and reasons:

We failed, meaning our egg died as soon as it touched the floor. Just to comfort ourselves, it was just a little hole. Anyway, our egg lander did not work. It did not fall as we expected, we thought it might fall just onto the accordions. The other main reason that we failed was because that we did not put enough protection around the side of the structure. After finishing the main top and base accordions, we were lack of straws to make an enough strong side protection. Therefore, our egg directly hit the harsh floor.

We failed :(

Further improvements:

Though we are given a second-second chance, there are still some mistakes to fix in future. The biggest one would be that we were lack of side protection. Due to the short of the straw, we were not able to make enough accordions. Our egg hit the ground directly because of no accordion protection. We cannot deny that accordion is an good idea!!!!      

Candle Balloon [Sept. 29]

Proposal:

We were asked to make a candle hot balloon based on the structure of our previous egg lander, meaning we had to make this hot air balloon without deconstructing the egg lander. However, we did. Our design was to simply fit the 10 candles, and at same time, keep balance.

 

Result

We failed again!

Reason 1: The bag was too heavy; ten candles are too weak to produce the hot air to push the bag up.  

Reason 2: We had the candle at the bottom of the structure. However, we needed the heat to go upward to fly the balloon. Therefore, the heat that the 10 candles produced could not reach the top of the plastic bag, and that was why the entire balloon was not able to fly.

Improvement:

In order to have the heat reached the top of the plastic bag, we need to design a structure which can hold the candle at the middle or the top of the plastic bag. Of course, we also have to keep the several candle at the bottom just to keep the structure balance.

Reflection: Egg Lander [Sept.18]

      We supposed to make a container for egg to protect the egg from breaking when dropped from the roof. However, we all failed.
       Orginally we planned to make small cube which could exactly fit the egg. At the same time, we cut the straws in to small pieces. These little straws were stuck onto the cube. We thought these straws could have reduced the force when the container hits the ground. These little straws were made to support the entire structure which could prevent the egg from smashing on the ground.
        However, we forgot one important thing, the corner of the cube. We only covered the sides of the cube, not the corner. I did not realize that until the container hit the ground exactly on the corner where we did not put any protection at all. And then, our egg died.
        For the future constructing, there are few things needed to be correct.
         First, try to avoid the corner, instead, make a spherical container. This way makes it easier to make the protection all around the container.
        Second, the shorter the straws are, the stronger they could take the pressure.

      Hopefully, the structure we are going to make will succeed through these improvements.