Bumps and Bruises in Sports: Protect Your Egg
Athletes often wear protective gear to keep themselves safe in contact sports. In this spirit, students follow the steps of engineering design process as they design, build and test protective padding for an egg drop. Many of the design considerations surrounding egg drops are similar to sports equipment design. Watching the transformation of energy from potential to kinetic, observing the impact and working under material constraints introduces students to "sports engineering" and gives them a chance to experience some of the challenges engineers face in designing equipment to protect athletes.
Football players wear protective gear during a game to keep themselves safeCopyright http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Navy-UMass.jpg
An egg is a delicate object. In certain sports such as football, rugby and lacrosse, humans are considered delicate, too! These sports sometimes present dangerous conditions that can be unsafe for humans. However, an acceptable level of safety can be accomplished by protecting athletes through good engineering design. Engineers who design sports equipment must consider energy impact and material constraints.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Explain that engineers design protective equipment for athletes in many sports.
- Explain that engineers re-design, re-build and re-test before arriving at a final design.