My partner for the "Egg Drop" assignment was Mike Korn.Me and him were to build an container for a single egg so that the egg would survive a fall from a second (or a higher) floor. This is how we ended up with the Bed of Balloons as our container.
We brought our ideas together right ahead, just after we decided on being a group at the end of the class the project was assigned. I was thinking on a container that would have the egg covered in something soft inside, and on the outside I wanted to cover the container with material that would make the whole container bounce, thus reducing the impact of the fall. I even had it pictured on my head. After a few sentences with Mike, I realized how complicated my idea was. I still believe it would be a very nice container if we had weeks and access to different material for the project. However, we only had a week and we were in college. Mike had the idea of balloons. Wow! How I couldn't think of that? I had this complicated idea of a bouncing ball with the egg held in a separate container inside, but balloons never crossed my mind. I guess I was lost in excitement.I assured him I had access to balloons: my workplace had a few extra after the decorations for Homecoming. So I had the balloons... When I showed up for the second meeting Mike asked me where the balloons were, so, I showed him the non-inflated balloons. He was disappointed, apparently he had this idea of helium balloons; "c'mon Mike, how can you even think I would have access to helium balloons?" After a few laughs, while Mike was trying to come up with a new idea I proposed continuing with the materials we had. However only balloons and a card box did not seem enough, so, we went to our rooms, looking for anything we could use. I found this orange Kalamazoo bag and an airbag with three sections that was the container for the in-ear headphones I had ordered. We wrapped the airbag around the egg and taped it to stabilize. Then we half-filled the bag with semi-inflated balloons, put the airbag with the egg in the middle, the covered the rest of the bag with more balloons! Now we had this bag full of balloons with the egg in the middle. However, we were not satisfied, and we had some balloons left unused. So we fully inflated them and taped them around the bag for more protection. My aim of something bouncy and soft was accomplished. In addition, the outer circle of balloons made a huge vertical surface area that the air friction on the container was extremely high. This ended up in our container floating from a third story window and softly bouncing on the ground. It was so soft that it is hard to call the contact with the ground a 'hit'. We exchanged looks of accomplishment: Success! Fun times... =)
If I was to evaluate our container I would first say that it was a success in behavioral design. In addition to the proper functioning it is cheap, fast and easy to make. On the other hand, it would fall behind the container made by Claire and Shelbi in the visceral aspect. Ours was not ugly or repelling but it was not that pretty either. I thought of how we could make it an visceral success. The first thing that came to my mind was that the tape on holding the outer circle of balloons was unattractive. We could have used an subtler material to attach those balloons to the bag. Or maybe, we could just not have them, why not? As long as we could stabilize the airbag with the egg in the center of the bag, I believe our bag would still be functional. Furthermore, our container touched the reflective aspect of design in the sense that it reflected the K spirit, since the bag was a K-College Bag! Go Hornets!!
Also, I was fascinated by the idea of freezing the egg in ice. I doubt it was Keaton's aim to make the egg so hard that it would not break at all, but it worked, didn't it? Although, it does feel like cheating, if the egg can still be edible after defrosting, it will the best idea of all.
Overall, it was the best assignment I had in K so far, I'm glad I picked (and found a spot in) this seminar.
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