The Great Egg Drop Take 2

The kidlets have been anxiously awaiting Egg Drop Day since we tried it last year.  I decided that Monday would be a great day to try this drama-filled activity.  This year we agreed on a few modifications for the rules:  each person had to make their own egg-dropping contraption; they could use any materials they wanted as long as they asked first; eggs would be handed out at 11:00 a.m. and the contraptions would be dropped from the top of our yellow ladder onto the middle of the driveway at 3:00 p.m.  The Prize:  If your egg survived the drop without cracking or breaking, you didn’t have to do any evening work at all.

Since I am doing a great job of raising kids who absolutely hate to do their chores, all three kidlets were extremely motivated to build an awesome contraption.  The planning started right away in the morning.  I even found plans drawn out on pieces of paper in the bathroom down in the basement.   Most of the contraptions were built by lunch time, and it was a long wait through nap/reading time before we actually dropped the eggs at 3:00.

Actually, Mr. Sneaky Pants managed to drop his egg and break it before he got it inside his contraption, and this resulted in a great deal of LOUD drama and a bit of a modification to the rules.  He was presented with a second egg and the opportunity to keep building a contraption, but was disqualified from earning the prize.  Although it was sad, everyone agreed that this was the most fair scenario.

Mr. Sneaky Pants wrapped his egg in several rags and then again in many layers of tin foil.  The Banana put her egg inside a stylish cardboard box that was decorated very artisticially with foam flowers and pom poms.  Inside the box she wrapped the egg in layers of rags, felt, and pom poms, and maybe some other soft things.  YaYa used a plastic box, wrapped her egg in stuffing, felt, rags, pompoms, yarn, duct tape and tin foil.  Then she suspended that ball from the edges of the plastic box using string.

It was time for the drop.  Mr. Sneaky Pants’ package landed with a thud. The Banana’s box bounced once and landed.  YaYa’s plastic box bounced twice and tipped over with a disconcerting crunch.

Mr. Sneaky Pants opened his contraption first.  Upon unwrapping the tin foil layer, it was pretty evident that the egg was not intact due to the rags that were soaked in egg white.  The egg shell had shattered.

The Banana opened her box next, and after undoing all those layers was thrilled to find an egg intact!

YaYa began dismantling.  It took LONG time to get the egg out, but it was also whole and complete.  She beamed.

The most surprising moment of the day happened in the early evening, when both girls, who were very happy to be dismissed from all of their evening chores decided  on their own to help Mr. Sneaky Pants with HIS work so that they could convince me to take them to the beach before bedtime.  It was such a nice gesture that I was easily persuaded even though I had hopes of getting everyone to bed on time to get back into the routine before school starts later this week.