Egg Drop planned at Landmark Inn

Laconia High School will be holding its seventh annual “Engineering Egg Drop” competition on April 1, 2005 at the Landmark Inn Hotel on Main Street in downtown Laconia. The contest challenges high school physics students to design and build a device that will prevent an egg from breaking when dropped from a high-rise building.

The competition is sponsored by the consulting engineering firms of Hoyle, Tanner & Associates, Inc. (HTA) of Manchester, and Rist-Frost-Shumway Engineering PC (RFS) of Laconia. Event organizer Robert H. Durfee of HTA and John L. Scott from RFS said that this year’s event will be much different than events held in previous years. “This year the students in physics class will be dropping eggs from the eight-story Landmark building, the tallest building in the City. They will be dropping eggs from sixty-seven feet, which is 50 percent higher than previous competitions”, said Durfee. “Also, the competition rules have been modified to eliminate parachute and balloon devices. We want the devices to fall hard and fast from a height of 67 feet.”

The competition is intended to introduce students to the field of engineering in hopes that they pursue a career in engineering or science. Competition rules require the students to design, build, and test a device that will prevent the egg from breaking when dropped from the 67-foot height. Students must write a report that outlines their approach to the design and testing of each device.

“The competition mimics how engineers approach problem solving in real life,” said Scott. “Engineers design and build things that must work the first time."

Devices are judged and given points for their ingenuity and design, flight characteristics, report, and whether the egg breaks or not. “True to the engineering profession, if the egg breaks, the student fails, just like in engineering”, said Scott.