During Mr. Bridgman’s 7th and 8th period physics classes, junior and senior students conducted an outdoor lab experiment in the Backyard of campus. Mr. Bridgman’s students were faced with the challenge of pairing up to conduct the lab “egg toss” experiment and had other students collecting data throughout the process.

The lab experiment showcased the force of momentum and the force of impact for each egg in motion. The experiment explains, “Drop an egg on a couch and chances are it won’t break. Drop it on the carpet and it might. Drop an egg on a concrete floor and it will break for sure. You might say the couch and the carpet have more ‘give’ than the concrete floor. In all three cases the egg comes to a complete stop, but what’s different is the amount of time required to stop the egg in each case. The change in momentum or impulse stopping the egg is exactly the same in all three cases.  What’s different is the amount of force and the time of impact. More time results in less force. If the egg is dropped from the same height, it hits each surface with the same speed and the same momentum.  However, as the time of impact is increased, the resulting force of impact is reduced in the same proportion.”

The winning group from Mr. Bridgman’s 7th period class, seniors Douglas Schmidt, Jackson Colletti and Colby Coulon explained “going into this lab we had a simple game plan. Douglas was the catcher, Colby was the thrower, and Jackson was the recorder and egg returner. Douglas caught the egg by anticipating where the egg was about to land. He reached out and he pulled back with his hands to allow the egg to land gently. Douglas caught the egg by increasing the time of impact so the force of impact would decrease, so the egg would not crack. Colby threw the ball underhand to Douglas with more time to adjust to the egg. The purpose of the lab was to investigate the effect that stopping time has on stopping force. Our group had the furthest distance at 30 m before the egg cracked.”