Egg Drop Inertia

This science activity will help your kiddos to learn about gravity and motion! The goal is to get the egg into the glass of water without touching the egg, the tube or the glass of water.

You’ll need: eggs, a cardboard tube, a pie pan and a glass of water

Instructions:

1. Center a pie pan on top of a large glass that is about ¾ full of water.
2. Place your cardboard tube upright on the pie pan, directly above the glass.
3. Carefully place an egg on top of the tube.
4. Smack the edge of the pie pan horizontally with your hand to pull it out from underneath the tube! Try not to swing up or down. 

How It Works:

This activity presents Sir Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion which explains how objects in motion want to stay in motion, and objects that are stationary want to remain that way unless an outside force acts on them. You might have noticed that right after swiping the support out from under the egg (acting on it), that it didn’t move for just a second. That is because it wanted to remain stationary. However, the action of removing the pan and the force of gravity caused the egg to fall. At this point, according to Newton’s Law, the egg would want to keep moving but the glass interrupted the fall.

Take It Further:

What happens when you try this with jumbo eggs? Does a different size tube affect the results?

Thanks to our official STEAM Education partner, National Grid, for sponsoring this activity.