Protect the Egg: Students Demonstrate Packaging Challenges in Annual Contest
Bianca Rahim, a member of the Poly Pack team, displays an intact egg during the 2025 Egg Drop contest at the SLO Farmer's Market. (Photo: Katy Clark)
In the midst of the weekly San Luis Obispo Farmers Market, all eyes looked up at two Cal Poly packaging students atop a 30-foot scissor lift.
“Drop the eggs! Drop the eggs!” rang out from the corner of Chorro and Higuera, as anticipation filled the air.
Cal Poly’s packaging club, Poly Pack, held its annual Egg Drop Competition on May 8, sponsored by Pregis. Contestants are challenged with designing a container to protect an uncooked chicken egg from the plummet, bringing in all ages for the chance to win the $350 first-place prize.
The contest is free to enter, with over a hundred contestants competing for the win and hundreds more drawn into the spectacle.
Toddlers wielding balloon animals, couples sharing their favorite market food, and students enjoying the twinkling lights strung through the trees all watched eagerly to see if the package being cut open would drip with yellow yolk or remain intact, reacting with a chorus of oohs and ahhs, depending on the verdict of the egg’s survival.
“It’s a fun way to see how packaging can actually show up in real life and how it’s applied in the industry.”
Scarlett Frazier, Egg Drop Coordinator
As one bubble-wrapped egg catapulted from the lift, a young girl screamed and danced with excitement. “That was mine!”
The competition is divided into two divisions; the Poly Pack Assembled Kit Division and the Open Division. The assembled kit includes basic packaging products: bubble wrap, napkins, brown kraft paper, rubber bands, toothpicks, and string.
The Open Division is where creativity blossomed, with a bowl of oats, whoopie cushions and an egg pressed between two bags of potato chips that passed with flying colors. As long as the designs followed the guidelines, there was no limit to participant imagination.
In addition to the $350 first-place prizes, second place winners could win $250 and third-place winners received $100 each, maximizing the stakes for contestants.
But winning was not just dictated by the egg’s state following the drop, it was an equation of the mass, weight and speed of the drop. For the mathematically inclined, the score of the egg was calculated through the equation: (100,000) / [(total mass (ounces)) x (volume (in3)) x (time of fall (sec))] = score. In simpler terms, the equation mimics the industry desire for packages to be compact and lightweight, rewarding the surviving eggs that are the most efficient in that way.
PHOTO GALLERY: Several members of the community, representing a variety of ages, competed in the annual Egg Drop competition, put on by the Poly Pack club and hosted by Pregis. (Photos by Katy Clark)
Egg drop coordinator Scarlett Frazier sees the event as an opportunity for the community to come together with a real-life application of what she is learning in her classes as a sophomore industrial technology and packaging student.
“It’s a fun way to see how packaging can actually show up in real life and how it’s applied in the industry,” Frazier said.
The contest is a Learn By Doing experience hosted by the packaging students, meant to engage the local community with the world of packaging.
Contestants observed the patterns within the successful eggs, some saying the ones that bounced more seemed to be the winners. As the night went on, designs began to render more and more success as people saw firsthand what worked and what didn’t.
The egg drop competition was the perfect opportunity for amusement and to gain a better understanding of the importance of packaging in the world, especially catching the attention of children and families as they wandered down the farmer’s market.
First place winner in the assembled kit division was 10-year-old Lluvia, who said she plans to spend the money on skincare products at Ulta.
On her first attempt, she forgot to place a rubberband on her design to hold it together, causing it to splat when it hit the blue tarp. She decided to try again and reentered with her winning design that she called a “a potato kind of vibe.”
“It’s really nice, because when [the club is] doing this, other people can have a lot of fun,” Lluvia said.
Through the Egg Drop, Poly Pack not only gives back to the local community through prizes, but brings contestants of all ages together as hundreds tuned in to watch each unique design take its turn flying through the Thursday night sky.
Gillian Bears, a freshman kinesiology student, decided to join the competition because she believed her engineer friend could craft the perfect package. As they walked through the farmers market, the contest drew them in for the challenge.
“We really see how strong the community is here, like around the college, too,” Bears said. “I just love seeing people I know and all ages and everything, it’s always just good vibes and good food and good music.”
The Cal Poly Packaging program is one of the best in the nation, preparing students for industry with the most current technology.
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