An Ingenious Idea

The scene: a busy classroom, students scattered everywhere, some busy putting the final touches on their projects, others nervously waiting their turn for testing. A carton of eggs is placed on the teacher’s desk, right next to a big plank of wood propped up from one side creating a slope. It’s noisy. There are some students checking out their peer’s work, others flirting with each other, and a teacher shouting instructions while holding a clipboard and standing authoritatively between the carton of eggs and the funny apparatus. In the middle of all the commotion a thump is heard intermittently.

It was testing day for our independent study unit for grade 12 physics. I had worked on my project for the past two days trying to come up with unique solution to the problem posed by the curriculum, as the teacher wasn’t creative enough to come up with her own idea. The problem was creating a device that would protect an egg from breaking, when dropped from 6 feet, on the ground and then on a slope. The marks were based on intactness of the egg, and weight of the device.

Most of the students used foam to cushion the fall, but I had something else up my sleeve. One night earlier I had sent my mom to the grocery store in search of a new type Ziploc bag, the type with a sliding zipper. I had intended on using two air filled bags to protect the egg, just like NASA does when they send missions to Mars. I tested my idea at home with great success. Next morning I went to the class with pride knowing that I had the lightest solution to the problem. Some students used straws, the prettiest girl in the class used...of all things...hand cream to slow down the egg. She commented after her successful trial “at least my egg smells the best!” Indeed it did, and I would have flirted with her some more, if my turn didn’t come up next. My first trial was successful, the air cushion took the impact without a problem. The second trial wasn’t as successful, as one of the zip lock bags lost lots air and the egg came smashing down. The teacher picked up the broken egg... “Eww!” she said, as she through my brainchild into the garbage with leaking egg stuck inside.

I was disappointed by I consoled myself by the fact that I had the lightest design. More trials go by and about half way into the class in walks Adam with a late slip. I had known Adam for a long time. He was in my grade 7 class, the first class I attended in Canada. We were good friends in grade 8, and continued to be friends into high school. Adam was very messy. He always had a zip-binder to contain his school notes, completely ignoring the fact that there were rings in binder to bind the papers together. He would often draw dragons, Metallica symbols, and the odd warrior in his notes during class. He usually came in to school with one blue pen, with a chewed top. It was probably a pen I had given him at one point when he forgot his at home. Adam didn’t only forget school supplies at home, he also forgot about test dates, and project deadlines... including the physics project I had just described.

Adam threw his bag in the floor, and began to curse about forgetting the important due date. There were only a few students left for the trial and Adams had to think of something fast. Eureka! Adam smirked, took his jacket off, grabbed an egg from the counter, and wrapped his jacket around it. He was so proud of himself, and I couldn’t help but laugh my ass off at his ingenious idea. His turn came up, and he went up to the front with a massive ball of down stuffed fabric, wrapped around a tiny egg. The teacher was obviously irritated at the lesson Adam was teaching us, especially when she knew the outcome of the test. The egg was intact after all the trials, and Adam couldn’t contain his giddiness. At the same time the teacher couldn’t contain he frustration and said angrily “Enough of that Adam...you have the heaviest apparatus anyway.” As you can imagine, Adam could care less.

Adam had spent a mere fraction of the effort all of us spent in the class, and scored a few point lower than the average. In his Adam’s mind he was the smartest guy in the class, and I couldn’t agree more.