Skip to content
Article

The Great Atlantic BT Egg Hurl

If you want to soar to the heights, you’d better be able to survive the landing.

Atlantic BT employees discovered this truth firsthand during our annual Egg Hurl competition on the afternoon of March 24. 10 teams of Atlantic BT programmers, designers, and other experts united to find the best way to catapult an egg into the sky and have it land without breaking.

This was a daunting task, so we followed the traditional Atlantic BT system of testing a variety of solutions to see what worked. Each team constructed a protective chamber for their egg out of whatever materials seemed best to them. These chambers ranged from a duct-tape cocoon to a tiny safe packed with a towel.

“I thought to myself: What’s the safest, most secure part of my desk?” asked Andrew Bartlett. “After a glance around, I had my answer. In all my years at Atlantic BT, no one had been able to crack my desk safe. That meant this little safe was guaranteed to prevent my egg from cracking.” Andrew’s device would go on to survive the first round.

Employee holding up mini safe on string
Only gravity could crack this safe.

Using a homemade trebuchet built by Billy Bonar, each team launched their eggs and protective casings across the Atlantic BT parking lot. If a team’s egg survived a round, more weight would be added to the trebuchet to launch the egg higher and farther. The ultimate winner would be the egg casing that traveled the farthest without breaking.

“It’s a simple machine driven by basic Newtonian physics,” Billy said, “While I originally built this trebuchet to defend my home against roaming bandits, I was glad to lend it to Atlantic BT in order to test our ability to protect chicken embryos from asphalt and gravity.”

However, the winning egg casing relied on more than just science for its victory. Emily Davidson and Jennifer Herndon designed a protective netting of plastic straws for their egg, then coated it in glitter for maximum elegance.

The winners of both the Overall Best and Most Creative.
The winners of both the Overall Best and Most Creative

“I didn’t just want to win the egg hurl. I wanted to look really sparkly while doing it,” Emily said. She then hurled a handful of glitter in the air while hoisting her trophy aloft with Jennifer.

“I’m just glad no one got hurt when our egg device completely dominated,” Jennifer said. She serves as Atlantic BT’s Chief People Officer when she’s not using glitter to protect breakable objects.

Besides the overall winner, the competition also recognized teams with the following accolades:

  • The Spirit Award—For the egg device that inspired us all; given to Bradford Foxworth-Hill for sending his egg aloft in a simple blue box with streamers.

    AtlanticBT employee posing for camera 1
    The Face of Best Spirit
  • The Always a Bridesmaid Award—For the egg device we all wanted to do better than it did; given to Matt Deal and Kendall King’s “Dank Tank,” which flew far, broke hard, and rhymed.

    Close up shot of Dank Tank entry
    Dank Tank never failed to inspire. Until it failed.
  • The Epic Fail Award—For the egg device that did not work at all; given to Rachel McKay, Jessica Harper, and Jennifer Reaves, whose egg casing was bound together with only drinking straws and shattered dreams.

    Close up shot of straw contraption
    This did not work.
  • The Most Creative Award—For the egg device with the most flair; given to Jennifer Herndon and Emily Davidson’s glitter-fueled vehicle of egg protection.

    Close up of vehicle for glitter entry
    A Vehicle for Glitter and the Imagination

For a live action look at the Atlantic BT Egg Hurl, check out this video of the event created by our own Wes Jobes:

 

The Atlantic BT Manifesto

The Ultimate Guide To Planning A Complex Web Project