Stanford’s first annual egg drop contest ended in a tie on Friday afternoon, with two teams splitting the $1,000 grand prize. More than 100 students came to watch the event, which featured 35 different teams who each attempted to build a device to protect one or more uncooked eggs in a fall from the fifth floor of the Terman Engineering balcony.

EnlargeEnlarge
The group “Eggscalibur” drops its egg off the balcony of Terman building’s fifth floor last Friday during the egg drop contest. Tau Beta Pi, Stanford’s engineering honors society, sponsored the event. #gallery http://daily.stanford.edu/image/full/2523
William West

The group “Eggscalibur” drops its egg off the balcony of Terman building’s fifth floor last Friday during the egg drop contest. Tau Beta Pi, Stanford’s engineering honors society, sponsored the event.

“There was a pretty good turnout,” said coterminal mechanical engineering student Steve Compton. “We liked the huge variation in designs, sizes and approaches.”

The event was sponsored by Tau Beta Pi, the Stanford engineering honors society, along with the Stanford Engineering Association, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education John Bravman and the School of Engineering. Brad Osgood, the acting associate dean of Engineering and a professor of electrical engineering, judged the event. Out of the 35 entries, there were only 15 successful drops. Of the 20 unsuccessful drops, 14 had broken eggs and six devices landed outside of a prescribed boundary.

“I think that the event went very well,” said TBP event organizer Scott Ogawa, a coterminal mechanical engineering student. “This was a good way to get TBP’s name out and provide a fun activity for the campus and engineering community.”

Spectators included professors who often peeked out of their office windows in the building and engineering administrators.

“This was a great idea,” said Mechanical Engineering Design Administrative Associate Charlie Ellinger. “Students are obviously having fun.”

The two winning teams, “42” and “Twins,” received tied scores of 3.9 in a complex formula that took into account the weight and minimum dimension of the device and the number of eggs that were dropped. Some teams did not realize that the devices would be judged by a formula.

“Our design worked, but we did not read the specifications,” said doctoral candidate Vignesh Anu. “When we got here, we realized that our design wasn’t optimal for the conditions given. We could have probably added a few eggs. But it was good fun.”

Fliers were posted in freshman dorms and contest announcements were made at house meetings to “encourage freshmen to take engineering classes and consider engineering,” Ogawa said.

The winning team, “42,” with freshmen Matt Gamboa and Ross Cheung, constructed their device with paper, egg crate, floss, a plastic bag and staples.

They said, “The event was enjoyable, but we were more nervous than we thought we’d be.”

They plan to use their prize money to pay for books, and also to “stay at Stanford for an extra 15 minutes.”

The other winning team, “Twins,” with seniors Shijun Liu and Alan Amaya, called the event “very stressful” and said that they broke seven eggs and stayed up until 5 a.m. on Friday morning to construct their design. The device was made of thread, newspaper, tape and Styrofoam cups and ground meat containers.