eggistential stem

Make a rubber egg

This project is an eggcellent one.Do you miss going to ride the bumper cars at kiddielands? Us too! We decided to make our own sort of bumper cars out of...eggs! Eggs are eggxactly the right household item that we can make squishy and fun. We will be making a typical egg (uncooked) into a raw bouncing ball. For this experiment you will need the following...
- An egg
- A glass 
- Vinegar (white vinegar preferred)
- TIME
All you have to do to complete this experiment is place an egg in a glass and fill it with enough vinegar to cover the egg. The egg then needs to sit in the vinegar for upwards of two days. Check on it each night and see how different it looks! Take note of the differences the longer it sits. How does it feel? How does it look? After a while the shell of the egg will disintegrate leaving the egg completely raw. It may even be larger than when you started because some of the vinegar will absorb into the membrane and enlarge the egg. After the egg has sat in the vinegar for long enough you will be able to actually bounce it on the ground HOWEVER, do not drop it from too high up because the egg does have limits and it will eventually break!

Read on to learn more about the science behind this experiment! Also check out our photos to see how our experiment turned out. 

The shell of an egg is made out of calcium carbonate. Calcium carbonate is made of a complex arrangement containing carbons, calcium and oxygen. Vinegar is made of acetic acid and if you have ever done the reaction where you mix vinegar and baking soda and see the aggressive reaction you have seen a much stronger version of this reaction. The carbonate in the shell will react just like baking soda so you should immediately see the vinegar bubbles attach themselves to the egg. 

Once the shell has disintegrated the vinegar will absorb into the membrane through the process of osmosis. This is the same process as pickling the egg. Because the membrane has been "toughened" by this process of osmosis that is what allows you to "bounce" the egg.