Egg Drop

Choose this exercise

Purpose: Test rapid team planning, prototyping, and risk management against an unyielding physical constraint.

Use it when: Use when an in-person group needs a hands-on design sprint to explore trade-offs between planning time and physical testing.

Skip it when: Skip when the venue cannot handle accidental food spills, when participants lack table workspace, or when running a purely remote session.

Group arrangement: Teams of 3 to 5 participants. For counts like 17, form three teams of 4 and one team of 5 so no one is excluded. Groups of up to 6 are permitted if room space is limited.

Timing: Extended from the 20-minute minimum in SessionLab to 35 minutes to allow sufficient design, drop testing, and structured debrief.

Materials and tools

• 1 fresh raw egg per team (plus 2 spare eggs)
• 1 drop tarp or plastic sheet
• 1 roll of painter tape for the drop line
• 1 tape measure or measuring stick
• 1 roll of paper towels and disinfectant wipes
• Per team build kit: 20 plastic drinking straws, 1 roll of masking tape (roughly 5 meters), 5 wooden craft sticks, 2 paper plates, 10 cotton balls

Before participants arrive

1. Lay the drop tarp on the floor directly beneath the drop target.
2. Use painter tape to mark a drop height of 7 feet (roughly 2.1 meters) on a sturdy wall or support column.
3. Pre-pack one build kit and place it on each team table.
4. Keep raw eggs with the facilitator until the building phase begins.

Say this to open

Welcome. Your team has 15 minutes to construct a protective container for a single raw egg. At the end of the build time, each team will drop its package from the 7-foot mark onto the tarp. The goal is simple: the egg must survive the drop without cracking. You may only use the materials in your kit. Inspect your kit and select one person to collect your team egg.

How to run it

1. Brief and kit distribution 4 minutes

   Form teams of 3 to 5 people. Balance numbers evenly (for example, 17 people divide into three teams of 4 and one team of 5). Direct each team to a table. State the design challenge, the 7-foot drop height, and materials rules. Distribute one raw egg to each team.

2. Design and build 15 minutes

   Teams build their protective capsules using only their allocated kit. Announce remaining time at 10, 5, and 1 minute. When time expires, all building stops immediately and hands must come off the structures.

3. Drop tests 10 minutes

   Gather the whole room around the drop tarp. Call teams up one at a time. A team member or the facilitator releases the package from the 7-foot mark. The team inspects the egg in front of the group and reports whether it survived intact, hairline cracked, or broken.

4. Structured debrief 6 minutes

   Facilitate a group debrief on strategy, execution, and assumptions. Take responses from 2 to 3 teams on how their initial plan compared to the final outcome.

Debrief questions

• What assumptions did your team make about impact force before testing?
• How did your team balance planning time versus hands-on building?
• If you had a second round with half the materials, what would you change?

Finished output: A tested physical prototype and observable data on structural survival under impact. Teams may opt to keep design sketches private.

Remote

Egg Drop cannot run as written online because it requires shared physical construction and an in-person impact test. Do not attempt an ad-hoc virtual substitute that lacks identical mechanics. If you must run a remote session, choose an established remote design sprint or run a separate digital physics simulation challenge, which must be facilitated as its own distinct method rather than an equivalent of this physical build.

Hybrid

A hybrid setting creates an unequal physical experience because remote participants cannot touch physical materials. To run hybrid, pair each remote participant with an in-person build team. Place a mobile camera facing the build workspace. Remote members serve as remote design directors who sketch the blueprint, audit material budgets, and direct construction steps during the first 10 minutes while local members assemble. During the drop test, carry the mobile device to the drop zone so remote members witness the impact live.

Access and participation choices

• Participants with sensory or dietary concerns around raw eggs may handle wrapped hard-boiled eggs or candy cream eggs instead.
• Any participant may opt out of physical handling and choose a non-contact role such as timekeeper, structural documentation lead, or drop test observer.

If the session gets stuck

An egg breaks during construction before the official drop.

Issue one replacement egg per team from the facilitator spares, but require them to clean any mess immediately with paper towels before resuming work.

A team refuses to stop building when time is called.

Announce that any structure touched after time expires receives a disqualification from the official survival record, then step over to collect their remaining unused supplies.

Terms used here

• Drop line: A measured mark on the wall establishing the exact height from which all capsules must fall.