WEEDSPORT - Emily Penird's house fell from the sky last week.

No, not her actual Weedsport home, but rather a handcrafted miniature replica made of cardboard, tape and memory foam in vibrant purple, green and black.

Constructed in her technology class at Weedsport Middle School, Penird's house had one purpose: to protect a raw egg dropped from a high altitude.

On May 28, she watched as her house, and 27 other crafts made by her classmates, were dumped off a plane about 200 feet in the air onto the football field #- and woods - below.

Before the drop, Pernird wasn't sure if her egg would survive the fall.

“I'll be kind of disappointed, but it was fun while it happened,” she said.

But not a half hour later, she found her house on the other side of the football scoreboard, egg intact.

Eighth graders at Weedsport Middle School built houses, boxes, octagons and other shapes over the past two months for the school's annual egg drop, a unit in technology class for which students construct a craft to protect an egg using specific materials in specific quantities.

The craft must weigh no more than 550 grams without the egg, no one material could be more than 50 percent of the total volume, which could not exceed 2,000 milliliters, technology teacher David James said.

Using these requirements, students needed to design and construct a craft that would, under a scenario devised by James and fellow technology teacher Sal DiSanza, protect an astronaut traveling to an atmosphere-less planet like Mars in a state of freefall, without the aid of parachutes and the like.

Last month, eighth graders tried their luck by dumping their crafts off the auditorium roof to the pavement below, a total 45 feet drop.

In past years, that would be the end of the egg drop. But this year, Weedsport Middle School had another test round for the crafts.

John Whitford, a local pilot, volunteered to fly his plane over the school and drop the survivors of the roof fall, James said.

Flying overhead, Whitford dropped the eggs in two spreads, some of which landed in the neighboring woods. Almost all of the crafts were recovered.

Ian Moore didn't expect his egg to get through the first round.

“I was more than surprised,” the 14-year-old from Weedsport said. “I was shocked when I discovered it survived.”

But he wasn't so surprised when his egg went krplat from the second fall.

A pyramid with an octagon base, Moore's craft couldn't withstand the 200-feet drop and busted at the seams.

“Let's just say I gave it my best shot,” he said.

James, DiSanza and Weedsport Middle School have put forth the egg drop to students for more than a decade now, James said. In the beginning the plane fall was a staple of the process, but it dwindled away after there were some insurance concerns.

This year's egg drop crossed curriculum lines, with math, science and English language arts teachers signing up to join, James said.

Staff writer Alyssa Sunkin can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 239 or alyssa.sunkin@lee.net