Tried and Tested Challenges Easter Supplement A selection of challenges involving eggs

Humpty Sat on a Wall Humpty wants to sit on the wall And not be worried in case he should fall He thinks he wont have any fears If he gets help from Young Engineers…. He wants to know if you can Come up with a cunning plan… For a container he can fit in While on the wall he is sittin Then if Humpty gets a shove Itll be a chance to prove If your container does the job of stopping Humpty becoming a blob What can we use, you might ask To carry out this simple task ? 1 metre of tape and 1 sheet of card (anything else will be barred)

Egg Transfer Devices The rules for these can vary greatly. They should be discussed and agreed by the participants in advance. The choice of resources is normally restricted to materials normally found in the home or workshop Continued overleaf

Egg Transfer 1.Design and build a device to pick up an egg from the floor at a distance of 1 meter away from you and deposit it on the table, whole. 2.Design and make a device to allow an egg to be transferred from one table-top to another. 3.Design and build a system to project an egg through a hole in a card and catch it unbroken at the other side.

Racing Eggs One egg is hard boiled and one egg is raw. 1) Try to get both eggs spinning on the trolley. Do they both spin as easily as each other? Which egg do you think is which and why? 2)When the eggs are spinning, gently put a finger on them to stop them spinning. What happens? Do they both do the same thing? Which egg do you think is which and why? 3)Use the "race track" on the trolley to have a rolling race with the eggs. Does the same egg always win? Which egg do you think is which and why? 4)Put a small pen mark on the egg that you think is hard boiled. 5)Towards the end of Chemistry Club the eggs will be smashed to see whether or not you were right!!!

Greasing Eggs 1)This egg is hard boiled. Carefully take the shell off it and put this in the bin, wrapping the bits in paper towel first. 2)Use your finger to take some grease from the watch glass and rub this around the top/neck of the conical flask, so that you can see the grease. 3)Balance the egg on the top/neck of the conical flask. You might need to use the spatula to scrape some of the egg away, so that it's too big to fit in the conical flask, but only just. Wrap any bits of egg in paper towel and put them in the bin. 4)Take the egg out of the conical flask and boil the kettle. 5)Carefully pour about three finger depths of boiling water into the conical flask. As soon as you've done this, put the egg back into the top of the conical flask and make sure it makes a very tight seal with the grease. 6)Watch closely. What happens and why do you think this is?

Etching Eggs These eggs are raw. 1) Use the wax crayons to make a design on the egg. The wax/design needs to be thick and heavy. 2)Put the egg in the bowl of acetic acid (vinegar) so that it's completely submerged/covered. 3)What do you see happening? Why do you think this is? 4)This eggsperiment takes a few hours, so you'll need to come back after school or tomorrow morning to see what has happened to your egg, but feel free to make predictions and explain these now. The wait will be worth it though!!!

Cracking Chocolate Eggs Imagine you work for a chocolate company whose hollow Easter eggs break too easily –can you come up with a way to use pasta to toughen the chocolate? How can you test he strength of the chocolate?