On 30 October the “eggconic” Bristol Composites Institute (BCI) Egg Challenge made a “weggcome” return. Involving some hands on “eggineering" it is an afternoon of light-hearted egg-related team building. Participants from across the BCI, including PhD students from the UKRI Centres for Doctoral training, CoSEM CDT and ISCE CDT, , get cracking in teams to build a protective shell for their eggs and then watch the yolk fly as they are tested against a one-of-a kind device hand-built by Chief Eggperating Officer Dr. Ben Woods.
In a plucky move, Dr. Woods decided to base this year’s event theme on a film he hadn’t actually seen - Deadpool & Wolverine – giving rise to the theme “Deggpool, featuring fRyan Heynolds”. Undeterred by this somewhat shaky premise, Dr Woods, presented an “eggceptional” challenge.
Participants, working in randomly assigned teams, were tasked with building a drop-cage to protect their eggs using only basic materials like paper, spaghetti and glue. Once built the teams had to work together to position their eggs above the target dropzone using lasers as a guide. The goal? To smash through as many defensive layers as possible while keeping the egg intact. The layers of defence became progressively tougher, comprising lasagna sheets, balsa wood strips and, finally, CDs!
The teamwork required to precisely align the lasers and ensure a smooth drop added an extra layer of challenge. There was a real mixed bag of success, from teams who missed the weak spot and got stuck on wolverine’s “claws”, groups that got through and broke a few lasagne sheets, groups that broke all the lasagna sheets, and the winners, who broke all the lasagna sheets and one of the balsa strips. As for the eggs, most survived the drop, but a couple broke, leading to a hefty point deductions.
The winning team took home the coveted trophy, made this year from wood reclaimed from the decks of the historic S.S. Great Britain. The impenetrable CDs (Kenny Rogers, Tom Jones and Cher) were given out as consolation prizes to the second to fourth placed teams. The top three teams also received some vouchers, though no doubt these paled in comparison to the other prizes.
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