Intro/Materials Handling

The Challenge: Design the Best Egg Packaging/Protection Device

Objective:

To build an egg drop apparatus to protect a raw egg that is dropped from the top of a building (approximately 40 ft. tall) onto concrete.

1. Describe your egg protection device.

2. The Role of Packaging in Our Lives

Almost all consumer goods have some type of packaging associated with them during shipment to stores and/or during their entire life cycle from the point of manufacture to the use by the consumer. Discuss what hazards must be protected against in the transportation of products so that the consumer receives the product unharmed.

3. Materials of Construction for Packaging

Over the past decades, packaging has changed dramatically due to the introduction of plastics. Packaging now is lighter, stronger, more resistant to impact, more economical, and more environmentally responsible than packaging of the past (metals, cardboard, glass). Discuss examples of such revolutions in packaging as the use of plastics in soft drink bottles, milk containers, grocery bags.