I like this video because of the commentary. The observers discus their opinions about why each bridge failed (casually) as the video plays. Notice the comment about lateral bracing on the first bridge. Would you agree with them?

Did you catch how the second bridge failed? This would have been an easy fix, and it just goes to say how you should reinforce the loading area on your popsicle bridges. Take the lessons from this video and use on your own models.

I also appreciate this video because the winner shares my name, Garrett. What do you think made Garrett’s bridge so strong?

I like this video because it gives the weight of each bridge, a nice close up of the design, and then has a slow motion video of how the bridge failed. This gives you a much better picture of how to improve these designs.

The video description mentions that a new rule for this year allowed the use of cabling. This is interesting to note based on which bridge won the competition. Did you guess which bridge would hold the most beforehand?

Thoughts About the Design

He states that this bridge should have been able to hold close to 1200 pounds from what he worked out on paper. It only held about half of that weight, which raises a question in me of, “what went wrong?” Also, if the bridge held 600 pounds and weighed 500 grams, it only has an efficiency score of 546. Compare that to my Short Pratt Truss Bridge Updated which had an efficiency score of over 1200. Granted, his bridge was longer, I’d guess around two feet long which is double that of my pratt truss popsicle bridge. Has anyone here been able to achieve a higher efficiency score with a similar length popsicle bridge?

Notice when he says he sacrificed making triangles to add beauty to the bridge. Do you think this was acceptable? What would you have done?

I like this video because it is very systematic and well documented. The video shows a Balsa wood bridge built for a statics project. You can watch the process they went through to design and build their bridge, and at the end they give a little bit of evaluation. The bridge ended up with an efficiency score of 514.

You can see the joints popping and moving around in the video. The joints they used are called mitered joints, which is a fancy end joint. Learn more about bridge joints. They also put a gusset on all their joints.

What do you think about their prediction of where the bridge would fail first? Do you agree with them based on the wood size and the numbers from the John Hopkins Bridge Designer program that they used?

What do you think they could have done to make the bridge stronger?

Largest Popsicle Bridge

Here is the story of the Prairie Popsicle Stick Bridge told in video format. As far as I know, this is the longest working popsicle stick bridge that a person can walk across. If you know of a longer bridge that does the same, please let me know. The largest popsicle bridge was built back in 2008 in my dorm room at Prairie Bible College. For many nights I slept on the floor, as I was using my bed space as a worktable to glue the bridge together. This bridge is long, it is large, and super cool.

The testing of this bridge was a community event, as you can see the large number of people gathered to watch. This bridge definitely is one of my favorites that I have built over the years. Two years later people are still talking about it at the school.

You can tell that most of these bridges were thrown together. There are a couple nice looking ones. Can you tell that I care about the beauty of the bridge yet?

I wish they gave more information about how many popsicle sticks were used and how much the bridges held.