Egg Breaker Design Team

By George Himes

The Egg Breaking Design team is now in its second year of progrss, and our work has moved from the theoretical idea stage to one of practical experimentation. Dynamic Devices Development, a small design constituency, was brought on board to help us design and build a test bed to determine what methods of opening an egg are most effective. (A test bed is a device that tests part or all of the ideas that might become the working prototype.) Our test bed has various cutting and puncturing tools with preliminary testing showing a wide range of results. Some of the results have been: no separation of the egg just the impact point slightly crushed; the egg was cracked on the top but not down both sides; the shell broken in half with some connection at the base; and finally, a few times a clean cut with the yolk left intact. The most promising egde in the preliminary testing is a wide sharpened wedge. When driven into an egg approximately 1/4 of an inch it will break the shell with minimal fragments contaminating the egg.

After cracking approximately 80 eggs the general simiarlity seems to be that the larger the egg the more the top was crushed. The smaller the egg, the cleaner the crack and separation.

Some future tests will determine how to load the egg into the device, remove the contents from the shell, and deliver the egg into a dish for cooking or baking.

Over 100 dozen eggs will be needed to complete this testing. Anybody know of any cheap chicken egg farms for sale? Seriously though, if any of our readers would like to get involved with the testing or has comments, suggestions or questions, please feel free to contact the design team through either Jim and Jane Fee or Bob Piech.

For more information, check out the Egg Breaker Design Team Home Page.