I just found some old pics of my first ever Science Olympiad bridge. This photo is 7 years old. Many props to my mom for keeping it.

Left to Right:My coach, David, Me
The bridge weighed 58 grams if my memory serves me well. It held the entire 15kg with ease. It probably could have held 100lbs [...]

Now that the 2007 Science Olympiad season is well over, I am releasing photos of a concept boomilever I made before regionals. Here is a video of the testing of the boomilever:

The boomilever broke because of all the force that was applied outwards on the bottom chords. The boomilever simply “split” apart and [...]

This balsa bridge was built by some students of mine. It spanned 14 inches, weighed 8.1 grams, and held 29 pounds. That puts its efficiency at 1630.

This photo makes the bridge look a little lopsided. That wasn’t the case, however.

Here is a photo of where the bridge broke. Click the picture to get a really [...]

This balsa tower was 12 inches tall, 8 inches wide at the base, and tapered to a 2 inch square at the top. I only have about forty pounds of sand, so I ended up adding any heavy object in sight to the bucket. After putting in the ceramic mug used to pour the sand, [...]

Yes, this is one of the coolest bridges I have ever seen. Built by J.C. Booth Middle for the Science Olympiad Georgia State Finals in 2003, it placed 3rd. For those of you who don’t know Booth, keep reading.
Booth Middle School has won the Georgia State Finals as a team for longer than I can [...]

Chamblee has always done well in Bridge Building. In 2001, they won the State finals in this event.
This bridge is from the 2003 GA State Tournament, the same tournament the Booth Bridge is from.

I was never able to fully develop and use this bridge. I got this idea from talking with a Science Olympiad coach in Ohio. Now I wish I had gone ahead and put more work into this. The next year, the bridge rules changed so that I could not use this concept.
The trick was to [...]

This bridge was definitely not my best, but it does bring back memories. It was the second bridge built by my old Science Olympiad Bridge Building partner, David, and I. As you can see, we were still in the beginning of our bridge building career. I assume David is still building bridges, as his father [...]

This was one of my earlier bridges. I built it after talking with my uncle, who is a mechanical engineer. He suggested that I try using an I-beam. I don’t know how much this bridge weighed, but it did not hold very much weight.
I had problems making the two I-beams for this bridge. I had [...]

Boy does this bridge bring back memories. I built this bridge in 2001, in the 7th grade. It was my first attempt at building a bridge on my own after building this bridge with my partner.

I had wanted to make an arch bridge, much like the Booth Bridge, but I didn’t have the building skills [...]

This bridge won the 2004 GA State Science Olympiad Bridge Building competition. It weighed 9.47 grams, spanned 35cm, and held 15kg without breaking. The efficiency score was 1584. This bridge was made completely from Basswood. No Balsa or other wood was used.

The top chord was made from 2 sticks of 1/16″ square pieces, [...]

I really have nothing on this bridge. I have no idea what team it is from, how much it weighed, or how well it did at the Science Olympiad competition.
I have a picture of it, well, because I had a camera, and the bridge was there. So if you have seen this bridge before, and [...]