TechnoBrain 2018: Return of the EggCopter

Doctor Bob’s TechnoBrain 2018: Excitement and creativity at Technion’s EggCopter competition

Led by 85-year-old Yishai Zimmerman, the Zimmerman family from Kibbutz Ein Harod Ichud won today’s TechnoBrain 2018 competition by successfully designing a device for dropping raw eggs from 40 meters

HAIFA, ISRAEL (MAY 3, 2018) – On Wednesday, May 2nd, a large crowd gathered on the lawn of Technion’s campus to view “EggCopter X20”. EggCopter is  a quirky competition featuring creative student engineers with homemade devices designed to drop four raw eggs each from a 40-meter-high crane while breaking as few eggs as possible. A total of 14 teams took part, with teams comprised of groups of students and families.

Tensions were high as the devices were hoisted into the air one-by-one by the crane and then released. Some floated gently to the ground, while others plunged at full speed to their messy demises. The hundreds of onlookers held their breath after each landing, while judges determined how many eggs successfully survived the fall.

EggCopter X20 is part of this year’s Doctor Bob’s TechnoBrain competition, an annual event conceived in 1997 by the late Neev-Ya Durban, then a student at Technion’s Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. Durban founded the competition  “to get students away from their textbooks and computer screens and give them an opportunity for creative expression while coping with complex problems in a fun atmosphere.” Tragically, Neev-Ya Durban was murdered in 2003 in Tel Aviv. His parents, Prof. David and Rachel Durban, were part of the jury in today’s event. “Neev-Ya’s vision and dream has been fully accomplished,” said Prof. Durban. “Today’s competition was heartwarming because what we saw was the essence of Engineering.”

The 14 teams were judged according to several criteria: the number of eggs that reached the ground intact; the percentage of eggs that didn’t break; speed; how close the device landed to the target; and design.

First prize went to the Zimmerman family’s simple yet effective invention made of sponges, empty water bottles and a yellow parachute. Each of its four raw eggs rested in a sponge “nest” and, amazingly, three of the four survived the 40-meter drop intact! The Zimmerman team, which participated in five previous TechnoBrain competitions, was led by 85-year-old Yishai Zimmerman from Kibbutz Ein Harod Ichud. They won a NIS 10,000 cash prize.

The second prize, worth NIS 5,000, went to a team consisting of three generations of the Hakim family, the youngest of whom is in 1st Grade. Their device, made of water bottles and parachutes, plunged straight down in 4.5 seconds with two eggs remaining intact.

Three Technion students, Max, Shir and Daniel, won the NIS 3,000 third prize even though their invention was slow to disconnect from the crane’s hook and essentially crash landed. Despite these mishaps, three eggs survived the ordeal.

The competition was brilliantly organized by Marina Minkin, a graduate student at the Technion Computer Science Department, and moderated by Prof. Irad Yavneh. The judges were Prof. Alon Wolf, Prof. Alon Gany and Prof. Tanchum Weller, and Neev-Ya’s parents.

Doctor Bob’s TechnoBrain competition was made possible thanks to the generous support of Dr. Robert Shillman (Doctor Bob), a Technion benefactor. He is a Technion Guardian – a designation for those who have reached the highest level of support for the University, and will receive an Honorary Doctorate from Technion in June.