The document summarizes a student project to send a single Pringles chip through the USPS intact from one high school to another. It discusses researching the Pringles chip shape and possible packaging ideas using materials like gelatin, cotton balls, or a molded polystyrene container. Design sketches and a decision matrix were created to choose polystyrene. Testing involved throwing, dropping, stacking on, and sitting on the packaged chip, which survived except for minor chip damage. The goal was to collaborate with the other high school to complete the challenge of shipping an edible chip through the mail.

1. Pringles Chip Challenge By: Joaquín Zúñiga and Matthew Millington

2. What’s the challenge? We need to send a single Pringles chip to Conant High School through USPS. The constraints include: The chip must remain intact The package must fit into a USPS package Must be lightweight Must be edible after arriving We must collaborate with students at Conant, which was the main point of this project.

3. Research

4. Research Company basics: Origin: Cincinnati Year Founded: 1968 Worth 1 billion U.S. Dollars The shape of the chip, and it’s Container: The Shape: Hyperbolic Paraboloid KEY: Uses both the Hyperbolic, and the Elliptic types of Parabaloids Shape Equation: z= Ax^2 + By^2

5. Hyperbolic Parabaloid

6. Possible Ideas We had two main ideas: The first was to get a container, put the chip inside of said container, then fill the container with some substance. For the substance we thought of: Gelatin Cotton Balls Peanut Butter

7. Possible Ideas (Cont.) Our other idea was to make a containers made of symmetrical pieces with a small portion of it hollow to fit the chip Materials we thought of using were: Expanded Poly Propylene Memory Foam Lexan Polyisocyrate Polystyrene Our final decision was to use Polystyrene

8. Decision Matrix

9. Decision Matrix

10. Durability 1: Not very durable and will break easily. 2: Will last for a little bit but will still break pretty easily. 3: Mediocre. Will survive some of the things it will have to undergo. 4: Will not break easily 5: Basically guaranteed to not break

11. Accessibility 1: Extremely hard to find. A rare resource 2: Only a few places will have this material. 3: Can be found some places and don’t have to go out of the way to find. 4: Can be found in most stores 5: Can be found almost anywhere and would be very easy to obtain.

12. Cost 1: Extremely expensive. Not within our price range. 2: Cost more than most supplies. 3: Okay pricing, not super cheap but not super expensive. 4: Can be purchased for a small amount. 5: They’re basically giving it away.

13. Feasibility 1: Hard to make. Extremely complicated and a long process 2: Will take time and patience to put together 3: Some complexity but fairly easy to put together. Most people can do it 4: Easy to put together but may take some time. Anyone could do it 5: Extremely simple to put together and can be done very quickly

14. Sketches

15. Sketches Cont.

16. Testing

18. Testing Our testing contributed of 4 parts: Throwing the box at a wall three times Throwing it down from one story to another Stacking things on it Having a 16 year old boy sit on it The chip survived all 4 tests, except for a little chip on the chip after the first test

19. Testing Videos

20. Bibliography www.usps.com www.pringles.com www.loews.com