Lunar Lander

Parker and Asher

Task

Make a lunar lander that at maximum be 4x4x4 (height) and be made with plant based materials
with the budget of 5.00$ total. Lander should be able to protect cargo while it falls from 180ft
above the moon’s surface
 Research
Research topics:
● Egg drop height
● Average weight of an egg
● Plant based glue/how to make
● Plant based tape/how to make
● Parachutes

Research purposes:
● The moon's gravity is one sixth of earth's therefore we would’ve had to drop it 30
feet.
● The average weight of eggs was 3 ounces
● Plant based glue can be also be considered as wood glue.
● Plant based tape is an item that we could’ve used, you can buy it from amazon for
three dollars.
Partner 1 Brainstorming

My first ideas consisted of using paper or cardboard straws to surround the egg sort of like a
baby carriage filled with cotton balls and using cloth as a parachute so it could sort of catch the
wind and make the egg fall slower. Eventually I decided to change the structure of the “crib” and
make it more triangular and attempting to keep the parachute, but ultimately decided that it
needed to go against it because of fear that it might break off.
Partner 2 brainstorming

I had three different ideas for the egg drop project. One of my ideas was to
incase the egg in a pyramid of straws so the straws could absorb the impact of
the landing.

Another one of my ideas was a parachute esc. Idea. where the egg would be in
a triangular structure and be sent down spinning so it could catch the wind
and land lightly.

My final brianstorm that I had was and egg with a parachute over the top. In
my mind I had thought that the parachute would catch the wind and make the
egg land gently.
Group brainstorming

When we both finished coming up with our ideas we discussed how

we would chose an idea. Eventually Mr. Bonds helped us decide by
using a chart.
 Decision Matrices

The idea we eventually decided on doing a 3.8 x 3.8 x 3.8 box, full of cotton
balls and packing peanuts so it could cousin the landing of the egg. The box
would be made out of cardboard, the box would be filled with layers of cotton
balls and packing peanuts, and the box would be held together by string. We
decided on this by evaluating how we thought each design would’ve done in
four different categories.
Prototype Testing Performance Observations

While observing our record of our egg drop we noticed that our lander shifted/ turned to the
left and decided that it must be because the egg was not secured enough and that there was too
much dead space in our lander. In our final we made our box smaller and made our “crib” more
compact as well as our box for our final.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/MjorDvgNupU
Final Design

Our final design was inspired by our old design. We changed it by making the egg
stay in a more compact structure inside of the box. We considered that the egg had
to much space when falling so the egg broke when it landed. That is also why the
box turned all of the eggs weight kept moving so it didn’t land correctly. This
happened with many of other people's egg drops as well.
Final Design Testing Observations and
Results

Upon landing our egg seemed to have dropped much harder and bounced of the landing area,
while nothing leaked out, this is most likely to be the reason our egg cracked. This was probably
caused by the extra weight our egg had, unlike our prototype. Next we should consider this for
future projects.
Conclusion

We have learned that there are many things to consider when doing
projects like how some things will do in certain situations. If we did
this project again we would make the pyramid a tiny bit bigger
because the straws were the ones to break it not the impact. We
would also research the top speed the box would get when we being
dropped from thirty feet.
Partner 1 Reflection

I did not personally have many issues regarding this project besides
general impatience regarding the cutting and glueing part of the
construction. Other than that we had minimal issues that I felt were
minor inconveniences.
Project 2 Reflection

I didn’t have any problems with this project. Some hard things about
this project were coming up with ideas to make. Some challenges I
felt we had were the height restrictions for the box but we eventually
got over that challenge.
Questions? :)