Protect The Egg

Protect the Egg is a teambuilding activity that involves collaboration, problem solving, and creative teamwork. This exercise in teambuilding can be messy, so choose an appropriate setting where making a mess is acceptable.

Groups build a structure out of ordinary materials and try to protect a raw egg from breaking when dropped from a high elevation. The recommended group size is: teams of four or five people. Several materials are needed: raw eggs, several plastic straws, scotch tape, newspaper, and other materials of your choice.

The mission is to protect the egg from cracking using teamwork, creativity, and a good design. You will drop each structure at least fifteen feet, and so the goal is for each structure to be able to withstand such a fall.

Each team will only be given limited resources, and so they must be wise with what they have. They may not use any other resources other than what is given to them.

Decide on an appropriate amount of time (e.g. 20-25 minutes) and then instruct them to begin! Tell them to place their egg inside their structure. When time is up, collect all the structures.

The structures are dropped from at least 15 feet in elevation and then carefully inspected to see if the eggs survived.

This activity is useful to illustrate the importance of teamwork. Ask everyone to reflect on how their group accomplished the task, what worked, what was challenging, etc.

The topics of this publication: creativity, teamwork, imagination, strategy