A Practical Addition to Engineering Design

Students engage in a traditional egg drop activity to create a cradle that will protect an egg as it falls from a certain height. They are then introduced to trade-offs. In this case they ... See More

Students engage in a traditional egg drop activity to create a cradle that will protect an egg as it falls from a certain height. They are then introduced to trade-offs. In this case they had to optimize the cost of the materials used to make the cradle for the egg versus the quality of the cradle to perform well in every case. This is an interesting yet real-life twist on the engineering design. The authors walk you through this process as you read through the article.

Eggsactally

According to the authors of this article "Engineers have to make trade-offs because a design that meets all requirements of a problem equally and perfectly is impossible." In this article a... See More

According to the authors of this article "Engineers have to make trade-offs because a design that meets all requirements of a problem equally and perfectly is impossible." In this article authors share a lesson about cost or quality. Engineers cannot design a perfect product because they must consider cost vs. quality. Students designed containers to drop eggs 10 feet without breaking. This is a classic experiment but with a new twist. Students had to take into account the cost of materials and also design. They did the egg drop several times, each time redesigning their container. This article has clear, concise directions along with many helpful hints such as trade books to use.