CFI Thanksgiving Egg Drop Launches the Holiday Season With Creative Crashes and Uncracked Wins

The CFI Thanksgiving Egg Drop Challenge returned this year with even more excitement, creativity, and friendly competition. More than twenty students joined us for an afternoon filled with building, testing, and big cheers as each design took flight from the fourth floor. The event brought together families, laughter, and hands-on engineering in a way that perfectly kicked off the holiday season.

This year’s twist made the challenge even more fun. Students were limited to a small selection of materials including paper, cotton balls, straw, and pipe cleaners, and every supply had a cost. Each team had to stay within a set budget of "Turkey Bucks," which encouraged careful planning about what to use, how to reinforce their structure, and how to protect their egg without overspending.

Most student designs fell into two major categories. Some teams focused on increasing wind resistance with large paper skirts that slowed the fall. Others concentrated on building crumple zones using cotton balls, folded paper, and straws to absorb impact. Both strategies led to creative and clever engineering solutions.

As always, the real excitement came during the drop itself. With students and parents gathered below, each egg container was released from the fourth floor. Some entries landed gently, others bounced, and a few produced spectacular splats. Three students, Jayden, David, and Owen, stood out with designs strong enough to keep their eggs completely intact.

Every participant walked away with a custom egg trophy and a well earned sense of accomplishment. More importantly, they left with hands-on experience in trial and error engineering, teamwork, and creative problem solving.

We are already looking forward to seeing what innovative designs our young engineers bring to next year’s annual Turkey Day Egg Drop. Until then, we wish all our CFI families a warm and joyful start to the holiday season.