We run a comp here at Albury High in Australia for our Yr 12 Engineering Studies students involving max. 50 popsicle sticks, PVA wood glue and 2m of extra strong thread. Structures have to span 400mm and are centrally loaded. Here’s a photo of our 2010 winner which weighed in at 69 grams and held 58kgs giving an efficiency using the formula on your website if i used it correctly of around 12000!
These are some pictures of a bridge I built mainly out of boredom, but also since I have an interest in engineering. It’s a large cantilever bridge, meaning it has two arms that extend beyond their piers that hold up a center suspended span. It’s 10′ 2″ long and as of right now is hanging across my bedroom ceiling
Nic’s design held a weight of 224kg and had a final efficiency of 1020. It did not shear or snap at any member, but bowed in the second third of member C-E. This member did have angled bracing to stop bowing and this brace did not snap it was only the glue joins in this brace that failed. The truss ballooned out at the point when 2.2kN of force was applied. It was at this point that the test was stopped
It’s taken me just under 48 hours to get this far. Although i wouldn’t say its completely finished.. it’s a good as. I might just polish it off with a lick of paint and other aesthetically pleasing type things. As you can see, I’ve modelled it on the Pratt Truss. Although, I didn’t do any “real” plans, just rough drawings
We found that it holds 5lbs so far and potentialy more, considering our first bridge broke with a large ball of string as the weight and our second broke with a coke can. I think our success rate was pretty high
Bridge constructed with drinking straws & spaghetti. Pinned connections between straws with spaghetti.
Bridge span across deck = 50cm, supported below at half span.
Was skeptical about the bridge holding the weight of the brick but it do so easily.
The American Society of Civil Engineers has been putting on an annual popsicle stick bridge competition for high schools in western Washington for the last 13 years. Last year, I entered with a 350 gram, 30 inch long bridge that carried 567 pounds under their hydraulic press. Their website is http://www.seattleasce.org/ymf/popsiclebridge.html . They score the bridges on efficiency (I won at that!) and aesthetics (I don’t know why I didn’t win at that)
I just completed a new toothpick bridge that’s quite different than my last one. It’s an arch made from curved trusses, formed once again with toothpicks and wood glue. This one won’t be tested either (sorry!) because it was made for a friend who creates custom action figure dioramas. But I designed the bridge to have the highest ratio of maximum load to bridge weight and some ad hoc tests made me pretty optimistic
Hi this is Hyun Seok Yoon. As the title says, I just made my first bridge for Science Olympiad! Although it took me 12 hours (whew..!) I could see the good result! It held 15kg!
I just finished this bridge a few days ago after working on it on and off for 3 months. It’s a cable stayed bridge design made with standard round toothpicks and wood glue.
The bridge is 31 inches long and just under 20 inches tall. The main road truss is 2 inches by 2 inches, constructed of beams of laminated toothpicks (3×3) and held together by individual toothpicks in a triangular truss pattern. The towers were constructed of laminated toothpick beams as well, but thicker (4×4). Then the suspension was created with 4 strands of thick string wound back and forth across the top of the towers
Hi, I just wanted to share the excitement…by using ideas from your website (recommended by my son’s Cub Scout leader) my son Jackson and I were able to build a Popsicle bridge with approximately 125 sticks. It set a new record by holding 500 lbs. for about 15 seconds before breaking! Thanks for the great ideas…not bad for the first try
These are the photos of a popsicle bridge that I made for a bridge building contest at my university in Spain. The weight of the bridge was 3.9kg, and the bridge held 700kg without breaking. This gives it an efficiency score of 180. The dimensions of underneath the arc are 90cm x 45cm.
Hey guys it’s me again, First Timer. Taking the critiques you guys gave, I rebuilt the bridge. This was going to a county Science Fair which I think is pretty cool considering I started learning about bridges about 2 months ago. The specs of the bridge are
Hey everybody once again it’s me, First Timer. I thought the one thing that would make this website even better would be some vocabulary on the parts of bridges. Here are a few terms that might help if you ever need to describe different aspects of a truss or bridge
Hey guys it’s me again, First Timer. I came up with a good way to practice bridge building either before or for the next competition and/or just to keep your bridge building skills good, whether it be science fair or science olympiad. It’s building different bridge designs with K-NEX, Erector Sets, and/or LEGOs. Most of you probably own one or more of the following and it really helps practicing basic truss design
Hello everybody my name is First Timer and I had to make a balsa wood bridge with theses specs: 40.5 cm long, 11-12 cm wide 13-25 cm high, must have a span of 26 cm, peek of the span must be at least 9 cm, and this bridge could weigh no more than 16 grams
This bridge was built by Michael in Quebec.
I have a bridge I built for a physics for engineers class I’m taking in cegep (QUEBEC). My partner and I didn’t have much confidence in it, but it blew the competition away! The design was a fairly straightforward arch as you can see. We primarily focused on [...]
