A project similar to your egg drop activity was conducted in central Africa. Students constructed an apparatus that would protect ostrich eggs from collisions. They tested this by dropping eggs off a balcony at their school.
These students used native ostrich eggs, and a very expensive camera donated by the University of Cape Town to determine the following information: The average ostrich egg has a mass of 1.5kg, it took a mass of 110 kg placed on top of the ostrich egg to break it. Another ostrich egg was then dropped from the balcony. When using the camera, they determined the collision time of the ostrich egg with the pavement at their school was 0.001 seconds, and the velocity of the egg was -7.84 m/s when it contacted the ground.
9. Calculate the minimum force required to break an ostrich egg when the mass was placed on top.