Egg Drop Challenge - Martian Edition

This activity is taken from “Let’s Go Live with Maddie & Greg”, a live family science show on YouTube!

View the full episode this activity is taken from on YouTube

“We love this activity because it involves tinkering, trial and error, and chocolate eggs!”

Materials you could use

A payload (chocolate eggs work well but you could use a normal egg or something else you have to hand)

Yoghurt pot

String

Plastic bag (range of sizes and materials)

Paper

Any other materials you wish to test a parachute design with

Sellotape

Stopwatch

Method

Safety first!

Make sure a grown-up decides where you can safely throw your parachutes from - make sure they supervise you if you use a window like we did.

In this activity, you will be able create your own parachute to deliver a ‘payload’ (an object or item). You will experiment with your design to identify which shapes and materials deliver the payload as safely as possible

1. Use the yogurt pot to make a cradle for your payload. (We dropped our first payload with a paper aeroplane attached, but think it would be a better experiment to launch your first payload without anything attached at all!)

2. Be safe and ask a grown-up where you can drop your payload from.

3. Drop the payload without a parachute and time how long it takes to reach the ground. This will give you a base landing time to try and slow down.

4. Think about how you can slow down the landing of the payload by adding a parachute.

5. Using string and different materials, try a variety of parachute designs and time how long each parachute takes for the payload to reach the ground.

6. Make sure you only change the parachute and nothing else in order to maintain a fair test.

7. The parachute that delivers the payload to the ground in the safest slowest way is the winner!

Adding a parachute to an object slows its fall by creating something called drag. The surface area of the parachute means that rather than cutting through the air molecules quickly, it creates some air resistance and this in turn slows the fall of the payload.

Our favourite fact

NASA’s Perseverance Rover had a parachute measuring 21.5 meters across, making it the largest parachute ever used for a Mars landing!

Downloads

LGL Write Up Template

Suitable For

Curriculum Areas

Curriculum Objectives

Year 1: Pupils should be taught to describe the simple physical properties of a variety of everyday materials

Year 2: Pupils should be taught to identify and compare the suitability of a variety of everyday materials, including wood, metal, plastic, glass, brick, rock, paper and cardboard for particular uses

Year 5: Pupils should be taught to give reasons, based on evidence from comparative and fair tests, for the particular uses of everyday materials, including metals, wood and plastic

Year 5: Pupils should be taught to explain that unsupported objects fall towards the Earth because of the force of gravity acting between the Earth and the falling object identify the effects of air resistance, water resistance and friction, that act between moving surfaces