Welcome to blog post #2 of my Team X project. Today we finally completed and tested our first prototype and I must say, It went pretty well. Our prototype landed safely with outs any flips or bounces. We still have to see how it will function with an actual egg, but I'm not too worried about that, given how smooth the lander floated down to the ground.
I think the main that we have going for us here is air resistance. That is the force that makes the lander float to the ground instead of dropping straight down. We designed our lander to be a little light, so the parachute could actually hold the weight of the lander while floating down.
Another factor we covered is the force that occurs when the lander impacts with the ground. To counter that, we attached foam peanuts inside the box where the egg sits. To be even more safe, we fit the egg upside down exactly into a position where it is surrounded by peanuts. That way it doesn't shake as much and accidentally crack.
I feel that we need to find a way to position the lander so it lands somewhere near the spot-marked-X. Something that we really found easy was using our time efficiently. We worked almost the entire period without taking a break. We even got to test our landers in that same class period.
Something we have learned from our tests is that the way you position the lander actually makes a difference. What we find interesting though is that when we positioned it right above the spot-marked-X, it was the farthest away from the target within all our tests.
This is it for this blog post. Come back next time for blog post #3!
Link to egg drop video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NDPsOD3LgRM
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