STEM Students Demonstrate Scientific Principles to Fifth Graders

STEM students from The John Carroll School, Joseph Camello, Claire Grunewald, Alex Kaufman, and Carly Lyon, assisted representatives from Harford County’s Senior Science Society, Dr. Bruce Burns and Dr. Ed Schmidt, in leading an egg-drop activity demonstrating principles of impulse and momentum.  The four John Carroll sophomores visited Youth’s Benefit Elementary School on Friday, February 28th, and worked with 190 fifth graders.  They challenged the younger students to make a device out of household materials--toilet paper rolls, egg cartons, bubble wrap, and other supplies--that would protect a raw egg from breaking when dropped from 10 feet.  They also assisted Dr. Burns and Dr. Schmidt in assembling and firing a vacuum-powered “Egg Launcher.”  The Youth’s Benefit students thoroughly enjoyed the extra challenge of making a device strong enough to keep their eggs intact under the G-forces of the launcher.  The devices that were not successful in protecting the egg also drew an “eggcellent” response from the crowd as they delighted in the high-powered cracking eggs. (photo: Alex Kaufman ’16 drops eggs to test the devices made by fifth graders.)