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Egg inertia science experiment : Fizzics Education

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Egg inertia

Follow FizzicsEd 150 Science Experiments:

You will need

  • One drinking glass, three-quarters full of water
  • One sheet of newspaper
  • One cardboard toilet roll
  • One plastic tray or plate (This piece of equipment must cover the glass, be flat on the bottom and have a raised lip around the top)
  • One egg (if a student has egg allergies you can change this to a water bomb instead)

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Egg inertia science experiment - materials needed
1 Egg inertia science experiment - paper on table

Place the newspaper on the table, to stop the splashing water getting the table wet.

2 Egg inertia science experiment - glass in the center of the paper

Place the glass of water in the middle of the newspaper.

3 Egg inertia science experiment - paper roll on the lid

Place the tray/plate on top of the glass, and stand the toilet paper roll on top of it. Note: Make sure the toilet paper roll is directly above the glass of water. We don’t want our egg to hit the table instead of the water!

4 Egg inertia science experiment - egg sitting on top of the paper roll

“Ready for a karate chop!”

Add your egg on top of the toilet paper roll. Use a water bomb if there a egg allergies in the room.

5 Egg inertia science experiment - Karate chopping the lid

Now for the tricky part. You need to very quickly knock the tray/plate sideways, using a kind of “sideways karate chop” technique. The tray will fly horizontally, and the raised lip on the edge will catch the toilet roll, and the egg should fall straight down into the water, and stay un-cracked!

Variation: Try this experiment without the water in the glass!

6 A purple and a green Easter eggs in a palm of a hand

For a bit of fun at Easter, use chocolate eggs for the ‘egg-speriment’ instead 🙂

7 A man pointing at a bicycle wheel spinning horizontally on a desk (balancing by itself)

Get the Unit of Work on Forces here!

  • Push, pull
  • Friction & spin!

From inertia to centripetal force, this unit covers many concepts about Newton’s Laws!

Includes cross-curricular teaching ideas, student quizzes, a sample marking rubric, scope & sequences & more

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8 Primary school big science show
9 Teacher showing how to do an experiment outside to a group of kids.

Online courses for teachers & parents

– Help students learn how science really works

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Why Does This Happen

Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion says that an object that’s moving will continue to stay moving, and one that’s stationary will continue to stay still unless a new force is applied to it.

While the egg is balancing on the toilet roll, the egg isn’t moving and so it wants to remain that way. When you knock the tray sideways, you apply a force that moves it quickly out of the way. The raised lip on the tray transfers this force to the toilet roll and it too flies sideways. At this point, the egg is still stationary for just a split second, until gravity gets a hold of it and pulls it down into the glass.

This is the same principle that makes the classic magic trick, where a magician whips a tablecloth off a table leaving the crockery and cutlery still there, work.

Road safety application.

Inertia (the tendency of moving objects to stay moving) is critical to understand when you’re thinking about road safety. Without seatbelts in our cars, our bodies would keep moving forwards if our car stops suddenly, for example in a crash. The seatbelt applies a force to our bodies that slow them down, stopping us going flying. The same goes for loose objects that are hanging around in the back seat of your car – an unrestrained object can move forwards in a car crash and can become a projectile.

Variables to test

More on variables here

  • How lightly can you hit the tray and still have the gg fall into the glass?
  • Does this work if swap the egg out for a much heavier or lighter object?

A man with a glove above a liquid nitrogen vapour cloud

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