Dropping Eggs from Drones for Fun and Science - Rotating Egg Drop Mechanism

thingiverse

I was thrilled to receive an invitation from my local school to participate in their Egg-Drop science event, and this innovative project is one of the outcomes. The school administrators asked me to be a part of something new and exciting this year. Unlike previous years, where they would drop boxes to safeguard enclosed eggs, they wanted to try dropping eggs from a drone or multirotor and design a system to catch and protect them. This was the second iteration of our egg-dropping device (you can check out the first one here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:855304). The current version employs paper cups, 6mm threaded rods, 4mm nuts, bolts, and a continuous rotation servo motor for precise control. For more details about this project, you can visit Instructables.com (https://www.instructables.com/id/Dropping-eggs-from-drones-for-fun-and-science/). Instructions I printed all the parts using PLA with two perimeters, 15% infill, and two solid layers at the top and bottom. I aimed to keep it as lightweight as possible. I first attached the servo to the upper carriage of our drone. Then, I measured and cut the threaded rod so that the mounting bracket held the cups just below the body of the drone but safely off the ground. Next, I secured the custom servo arm onto the motor. To ensure stability, I used three nuts as spacers between the top and bottom carriages, along with an additional nut paired with a lock washer to firmly hold the bottom carriage in place. A little bit of Locktite kept everything perfectly rigid and in sync.