Archive: Around Town

The Sciencenter will hold its 25th anniversary Egg Drop contest on April 18, now the longest-running egg drop in the world. The contest will be held at Center Ithaca on The Commons, and is free and open to the public. The event is made possible with the generous support of M&T Bank.

Jim Bell, Professor of Astronomy, will host the 11 a.m. drop, and Lara Estroff, Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and Kyle Shen, Assistant Professor of Physics, will co-host the 3 p.m. drop. All three teach at Cornell University.

The Sciencenter encourages contestants of all ages to celebrate the event by designing an entry for this year’s special “25th Anniversary-Themed” category.  Contestants can get creative with anniversary-themed colors, make entries out of 25 pieces, or think up other 25th anniversary-themed inventions. 

Other popular contest categories include the “Earth Friendly” category, where contestants use only lightweight, biodegradable, reused or recycled materials. The full list of rules and acceptable materials is available at the Sciencenter Web site .


The Egg Drop provides individuals and groups with an opportunity to egg-cell in both the sciences and the arts. The event, which started in 1985, now draws contestants and visitors from many surrounding areas, including Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Switzerland.  An estimated 1,200 people attend the day-long community event. Every year, approximately 300 participants accept the challenge, with about 70 percent of the entries surviving the drop. The unsuccessful efforts are crowd pleasers, with a special winning category dedicated to those contestants who dare to dream big, but who may end up with a spectacular “splat.”

Aside from  “25th Anniversary-Themed”, “Most Earth Friendly," and “Best Unsuccessful Effort” prizes are also awarded in the following categories: best engineering design, best free fall, best parachute/slow descent, and best in age category. Contestants can enter in various age groups, including pre-school to first grade, second to third grade, fourth to fifth grade, sixth to eleventh grade, twelfth grade to adult. Family and group entries are encouraged in the “Family/Group” category.

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