Martin 1

Noah Martin

Derrick Holder / Stephanie Tatum

STEM Biomedical Engineering

11/18/19

Effectiveness of Helmet Design as Demonstrated in an “Egg Drop”

The issue of concussions is one that has plagued sports since their invention, though only

becoming widely understood quite recently. The ability to develop effective safety measures

within these sports is integral in keeping athletes safe while playing. Helmets already exist and

are widely utilized in professional and amateur impact sports around the world, yet we still see

countless head injuries occurring. This issue is brought up in the article Helmet Add-Ons May

Not Lower Concussion Risk in Athletes, John Lloyd (2015), where Lloyd explains that “despite

many products targeted at reducing concussions in players, there is no magic concussion

prevention product on the market at this time” This is unacceptable, as the potential brain

damage incurred by consistent impact can have devastating effects on an athlete. It has been

demonstrated that “whilst somatic and emotional symptoms resolve over time, cognitive

symptoms can become persistent and mild [in Traumatic Brain Injuries and] can impact longer-

term symptoms” (Theadom, Starkley, Barker-Collo, Jones, Ameratunga, Feigin, 2018). In order

to attempt to solve this problem, we used the “egg drop” project. The egg drop project is an age-

old exercise that is used in physics classrooms around the world. The project serves mainly to

demonstrate the applications of kinematics and impulse mechanics in the real world. The basic

idea of the project has one other interesting application, concussions. By using the egg as a

model for the human skull, one can redesign the project as a way of demonstrating concussive
 Martin 2

injuries and how to prevent them. In our concussion preventative “helmet” design, we utilized

various methods involving impact force distribution and cushioning. Our design as it stands

currently is far from being feasible, but the application of certain aspects of the device could be

promising in future helmet designs.

One reason we regard our model as impractical is the fact that it showed little success

during preliminary testing. Our design, among all versions, focused on the use of protruding

extensions to absorb impact force and direct it away from the egg. In the prototype, this was seen

in the form of the network of paper scantrons forming a sort of pyramid around the egg. No end

of the straw was ever facing the egg, meaning that all impact force was dispersed around it. This

proved to be very successful as a preliminary test, keeping the egg safe at 1m and 2m test

heights. The issue was that the design wasn’t very applicable as a helmet design. Moving beyond

the prototype, our first drop design model utilized the same basic concepts, but within a more

consolidated design. This proved to yield unfavorable results. The rigidity of the design kept the

egg from being able to move and resulted in breakage during our tasting. The rigidity issue is a

fairly important one pertaining to the issue of concussions. Stephen Piazza (2014) in his article

Why Is It So Hard to Stop Sports Concussions? Piazza explains how “Injury to the brain does not

require breaking through the skull, however. Damage can occur as the brain collides with the

hard skull, like a toy bouncing against the insides of a gift box.” The key to developing a safe

helmet design is increasing impact time. This distributes force upon the skull over a longer

duration, thus lessening the impact. Our design ended up causing the egg to smack against the

sides of the support cage and crack. The legitimate use of this type of model as a helmet would

almost definitely result in brain injury.

 Martin 3

Another reason our design is inadequate involves the testing of our third and final model

of the helmet. After the mixed results of the prototype and first drop design model, we adapted

our helmet to account for previous shortcomings. We added extra cushioning at impact points in

the form of a water bottle and extra straws to distribute force. We also left more room for the egg

to move around in, while also utilizing the methods from the prototype left out of the first drop

test model. This second drop test model proved to be semi-successful, but not nearly adequate

enough to be considered a complete success. During this round of testing, we attached

concussion monitors to our egg. These monitors detect force applied in terms of Gs, or force in

increments of Earth’s gravitational acceleration, 9.8m/s2. The monitors were 5G and 15G

monitors that broke once their respective force was applied to them. During our secondary drop

test, the egg remained unharmed, but both the 5G and the 15G sensors had been broken. This

indicated that the egg had experienced significant force and damage, even though the shell had

not broken. This varied data highlights an important issue within sports-related concussions. As

spoken about in the article Sports-related concussions in youth: improving the science, changing

the culture, short and long-term consequences of concussions [from] repetitive head impacts that

do not result in concussion symptoms” can be incredibly harmful in the long run. (Military

Medicine, 2015). These test results and supplementary evidence from concussion research

indicate that even though the egg survived, significant force applied to the head multiple times

has the ability to cause serious damage to an athlete, regardless of whether or not a concussion

occurred.

One could argue that our design aspects show promise within the development of helmets

for sports, specifically regarding our testing method. A counterpoint could be made regarding the

amount of force applied to the egg during secondary testing. In their article, Biomechanics of
 Martin 4

Sport Concussion: Quest for the Elusive Injury Threshold, Kevin Guskiewicz and Jason Mihalik

collect data that “contradict[s] the notion that a rigid threshold for concussion can be set.” One

could point out that our metric of collecting damage related data could be flawed, as the

spectrum in which concussions take place is vast and unquantifiable, ranging from 20g’s to

120g’s. This counterpoint would be valid, except for the fact that not all brain damage due to

impact shows up in the form of a definable concussion. As discussed earlier, it is possible for one

to sustain copious amounts of brain damage via numerous small, seemingly inconsequential head

injuries which normally go unnoticed. Our design doesn’t even protect against impacts of 15g’s,

so there’s no way it could be effective in preventing these small damages, let alone full-on

concussive injuries.

The development of effective helmet design is reliant on a number of factors. These

include the ability to increase impact time and the ability to prevent the skull from experiencing

significant impact force. While our final design managed to prevent cracking of the egg, the

design did not significantly decrease the impact force to an acceptable amount. We would advise

against the use of this design in real-life helmet models. The problem of concussions in impact

sports remains a sadly prominent one. Improvements to safety equipment are necessary if we

wish to prioritize athletes’ neurological wellbeing. The development of such devices requires

copious amounts of research and testing. The egg drop model allowed us to demonstrate basic

engineering designs, but nothing close to what would be necessary for actual helmet design.
 Martin 5

References

Guskiewicz, K. M., & Mihalik, J. P. (2011). Biomechanics of Sport Concussion. Exercise and

Sport Sciences Reviews, 39(1), 4-11. doi:10.1097/jes.0b013e318201f53e

Lloyd, J. (2015). Helmet Add-Ons May Not Lower Concussion Risk in Athletes. Neurology

Reviews, 23(5), 20-20.

Piazza, S. (2014). Why Is It So Hard to Stop Sports Concussions? American Scientist, 102(5),

346-349.

Sports-related concussions in youth: improving the science, changing the culture.

(2015). Military Medicine, 180(2), 123-125.

Theadom, A., Starkey, N., Barker-Collo, S., Jones, K., Ameratunga, S., & Feigin, V. (2018).

Population-based cohort study of the impacts of mild traumatic brain injury in adults

four years post-injury. PLoS ONE, 13(1), 1-13.