One after another, Portal Elementary School Principal Paul Hudson dropped bowls, buckets and boxes filled with cotton and paper shredding from atop a ladder perch on the school playground's basketball court. Students huddled around the principal, counting down each drop, to see if an egg placed within their shock-absorbing creations could survive the plummet. Not all eggs survived - including one ejected from its insulated box and left cracked, spewing on the court's cement ground - but smiling participants cheered as the event culminated a full day of science-related activities for third through fifth grade students.