Blog 4

 Egg Drop Challenge

The egg drop challenge consists of my group (Yeung Juen, Keith) and I ideating a design to protect a quail egg. This design is then 3D printed using the 3D printers in our lab. 

Throughout this experiment, there were many ups and downs. We initially got inspired by a ring box to protect the egg. This is because, a ring box protects a valuable and precious asset and hence, we thought of implementing this design to protect our quail egg like how a ring box would protect a ring. However, this design is not feasible as we were unable to 3D print hinges to shut the box. Additionally, it would be difficult for the egg to sit securely and with the hard material of the box (we were not allowed to add other materials to cushion the fall), the impact of the fall would definitely cause the egg to break. 

Therefore, we decided to implement a spring. The addition of spring would greatly help to cushion the fall. This design is kind of inspired by a shock absorber. The presence of the spring absorbs the shock when the design with the egg falls. The spring also causes the design to bounce up before landing again. 

This is the resulted print, which can be seen that the print is not sticking to the bed. This is a common issue in 3D printing. After much research, we felt that the reason for this occurrence was because the beginning of the print (springs) have very little contact with the printing bed. There is also a possibility that the springs are unlevel to the bed and hence cause such a problem from occurring. 

We improve our design by simply adding studs. We believe that this design would work out as the fall of the egg is not that high (2m) and hence, not much protection is needed but rather diverting the impact away from the egg was key. 

This is our final design

Printing our final design:

Firstly, we used the design on fusion and save the file into a SD card provided. 

These are our design drawn on fusion 

The SD card stores the file with our design and sends it to the 3D printer when inserted. The 3D printer then begins to print after we set the desired setting of our choice (Bed temperature: 70 degree Celsius, nozzle temperature: 200 degree Celsius). Ensure that the filament is inserted correctly (we did not insert as the previous user has done it for us) and press start when you're ready to print! :)

This is the body of our final product with the supports 

This is the studs 

Put them together and we have our final design :D

Many asked why we do not have a top to protect the egg. It was simply because we thought a 2m fall and a heavier bottom would cause the whole design (printed product + egg) to land upright (the heavier bottom gives the product a lower center of gravity  causing it to fall upright and land on the studs) 

This is us testing the product. 

All in all, I personally feel that the whole experiment was very enriching and we had lots of fun throughout the experience. Although there were times where we faced a challenge and it was difficult to continue, we worked together to overcome them. It has also made me grew closer to my team and built up our camaraderie. It was enriching as I was able to witness the mistakes I made for 3D printing like the print not sticking on the bed which eventually caused printing in the air. I was also surprised by the quality of the products designed by the 3D printer as I was not expecting it to be in such a strong quality. This has also showed me why 3D printing is often used for prototyping even in the industry. I do feel that my group and I could have come up with multiple design to protect our quail egg. We can also improve on enhancing our design, perhaps with an external body to shield the egg.