remember that carton of eggs and some paper? (Score 1)

The hypercone reminds me of an engineering class I attended. On the first day, we are handed an egg, some construction paper, scissors, and scotch tape. "Make something that can hold the egg and drop 20 feet--without the egg breaking". Of course, most everyone made some sort of brutish cushion. And, none of that worked. What did work? A simple cone. The egg was placed about 1/3 up of the cone to provide ballast and proper directional control. The extra construction paper was put at the top to slow the descent. When dropped... the cone descended--quite quickly (!), and then collapsed... the egg was safe. If the egg was put too far up, the cone would tip over and the egg would crack. Nonetheless, it was a simple and elegant solution. And, as far as I could see--the only solution out of about 30 different ones. BTW... my egg shattered on impact--surrounded by some construction paper. Oh if I had only stolen someone else's engineering design....!