The egg drop contest is an experiment usually performed by
college
A college (Latin: ''collegium'') may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary sc ...
or primary
school
A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the Educational architecture, building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most co ...
students. Competitors typically attempt to create a device that can keep a raw
chicken
The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated subspecies of the red junglefowl (''Gallus gallus''), originally native to Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated around 8,000 years ago and is now one of the most common and w ...
egg
An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the ...
intact when dropped from a height. Students are asked to build a device made from a limited or unlimited amount of materials to support an egg when dropped from various heights.
Regional competitions

Often schools work together to make larger competitions that pit more students against each other. One of the larger regional egg drop competitions is the Winston-Salem / Forsyth County Egg Drop Competition that takes place during Engineers Week (late February) each year.
Egg drop is one of 18 events in the
North Carolina Science Olympiad elementary competition. More than 100 teams compete in this annual competition.
Variations
A variation of the egg drop competition is the naked egg drop, in which an exposed raw egg is dropped into a container below that must catch the egg and keep it from breaking.
Another common variation is the egg hurl competition, where the containers are thrown by a device such as a
trebuchet
A trebuchet () is a type of catapult that uses a hinged arm with a sling attached to the tip to launch a projectile. It was a common powerful siege engine until the advent of gunpowder. The design of a trebuchet allows it to launch projectiles ...
or
air cannon. This variation is often used by schools that lack tall places from which to drop the containers.
"The Rowntree's Randoms Egg Throwing Championships – Swaton 28 June"
''BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
''-Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...
, June 2009 The egg hurl variation adds additional difficulties to the design of the container, since it is initially hurled at high speed and has to cope with horizontal as well as vertical velocities upon landing.
See also
* Egg tossing
References
{{Eggs
Physics competitions
Science education
Engineering education
Eggs in culture
Competitions
Science demonstrations
Egg games