STUDENTS' EGGS TAKE BEATING AT SCHOOL'S PHYSICS CHALLENGE.

Byline: Laurence Darmiento Daily News Staff Writer

Drop an egg 30 feet, and you know what you'll get - instant scrambled eggs, maybe a little egg-drop soup, definitely a mess.

But the splatter of raw egg yolk came with an additional price Thursday at Arroyo Seco Junior High School - a 40-point deduction in an egg-drop contest that tested the imagination and scientific know-how of more than 100 students.

Dropped off the roof of the school's gymnasium were an odd assortment of impact-shielding devices that were as much a product of teen-age humor as a measure of elementary physics knowledge.

One after another, to the delight, snickers and sometimes communal disappointment of their peers, the students' devices came crashing down - some surviving, others transforming the pavement into an ovoid war zone.

There was an egg stuffed into a Nerf football; one cushioned inside a 7-Up bottle with wings that turned it into a rocket; and another placed in a stuffed red skull.

Some students just went the macho way, using large boxes stuffed to the hilt with foam packing material. Landing with a thud, it wasn't pretty, but there was no doubt they survived.

Others tried cushioning the blow with plastic peanuts and bubble wrap, others went the edible route, trying Jell-O and even peanut butter.

The peanut butter entry was submitted by Michael Holloway, who took a tip from his father.

``My dad in college was in a contest like this, and he saw a guy do it. Actually he used Jell-O. We changed it a little,'' said the 12-year-old Saugus youth.

The peanut butter was inside a plastic container that contained the egg. The plastic container was then placed inside a cardboard box cushioned with popcorn. A final layer of protection consisted of some chicken wire.

Forty-five minutes' work by Holloway and his dad paid off. The egg survived unblemished, except for a coating of highly edible brown goo.

But the creations that attracted the most attention were the suspension devices, which held the eggs in midair, usually employing some kind of rubber band to absorb the impact.

Those devices also got the students the maximum number of points, 125, providing their egg did not break and there was no deduction for excessive size. No dimension was supposed to be greater than 10 inches.

One student suspended her egg in a tissue box. Another tried an egg carton inside a large cardboard Eggo box. Unfortunately, no points for humor.

Some of the greatest predrop anticipation was garnered by a gizmo created by Meagan Scott. The 12-year-old Saugus youth had suspended her egg inside two clothes hangers that had been twisted into the shape of a volley ball-sized globe.

She had painstakingly fabricated about a dozen small hooks and glued them to the egg, and then attached the egg to the globe with rubber bands.

``I wanted to somehow suspend my egg with rubber bands, and I thought it had to be connected to something,'' she said. ``But I'm afraid the wire might bend, and the egg might hit the ground.''

The delicate, slightly spooky-looking device created a chorus of yells as it was held high above the gym roof . . . only to end life with an ignominious crunch that splattered egg yolk a good two feet.

Scott was right. The wire had bent.

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3 Photos

Photo: (1--Color) Arroyo Seco student Meagan Scott holds the container she made to protect her egg.

(2--Color) Counselor Linda Frautnick examines Michael Holloway's peanut butter-covered egg.

(3--Color) Math teacher Sam Minyard drops a container holding a student's egg.

Hans Gutknecht/Daily News