The egg drop contest is an experiment usually performed by college

College

A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...

 or primary school

School

A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...

 students. Competitors typically attempt to create a device that can keep a raw chicken

Chicken

The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...

 egg

Egg (food)

Eggs are laid by females of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and have probably been eaten by mankind for millennia. Bird and reptile eggs consist of a protective eggshell, albumen , and vitellus , contained within various thin membranes...

 intact when dropped from a height. Students are asked to build a device made from a limited amount of materials to support an egg when dropped from various heights.

Naked Egg Drop

A variation of the Egg Drop competition is the Naked Egg Drop, in which an exposed raw egg is dropped into a container below that must catch the egg and keep it from breaking. Heights are increased until the egg breaks or the catching container is missed.

Egg Hurl

A common variation on the Egg Drop competition is the Egg Hurl competition, where the containers are hurled by a device such as a trebuchet

Trebuchet

A trebuchet is a siege engine that was employed in the Middle Ages. It is sometimes called a "counterweight trebuchet" or "counterpoise trebuchet" in order to distinguish it from an earlier weapon that has come to be called the "traction trebuchet", the original version with pulling men instead of...

 or air cannon

Pneumatic weapon

A pneumatic weapon is a weapon that fires a projectile bymeans of air pressure, similar in principle to the operation of pneumatic tube delivery systems...

. This variation is often used by schools that lack tall structures from which to drop the containers. The Egg Hurl variation adds additional difficulties to the design of the container, since it is initially hurled at high speed and has to cope with horizontal as well as vertical velocities upon landing. Usually the best way to protect your egg is with paper mesh.

Regional competitions

Often schools work together to make larger competitions that pit more students against each other. One of the larger regional Egg Drop Competitions is the Winston-Salem / Forsyth County Egg Drop Competition that takes place during Engineer's Week (late February) each year.

Egg Drop is one of 18 events in the North Carolina Science Olympiad elementary competition. More than 100 teams compete in this annual competition.