Robotics students will review instruments for egg drop challenge

Photo: Dr. Michael Thombs, associate professor of business studies and economics, discusses the egg drop challenge with Samantha Salwa ’18.

Students enrolled in the university symposium Robotics: The Professional Considerations of Global Business will review conceptual drawings of the passive robotic devices they intend to build for a unique “egg drop” challenge next week. The poster board session will be held in the O’Hare Academic Center lobby from 8-8:45 a.m. Friday, Sept. 19.

Using feedback and comments from their classmates, the students will finalize assembly plans for instruments to be used in a competition at O’Hare at 8 a.m. Friday, Sept. 26, when they will launch eggs from a second-story window in an effort to land them unharmed on the pavement below using only passive robotics. Unlike traditional egg drop challenges, students in this competition will not be permitted to use protective padding.

“Students must use passive robotics to bring the egg safely to rest on the hard pavement below,” explains Dr. Michael Thombs, associate professor of business studies and economics. “They may use wheels, pulleys, levers, rotors, slingshots, shock absorbers, etc., but they may not use passive non-moving instruments such as helium fill balloons, parachutes, protective foam and other forms of padding.”