Model Bridge Design

This is a fun video showing the failure of a lot of Science Olympiad Elevated Bridges at the Crystal Lake Invitational 2009. Does anyone know what state this is held in? This video shows a lot of different bridge styles for Science Olympiad, so it might help give you a starting place for a design. Keep in mind that this is just at the invitational competition level

Here is the Science Olympiad bridge J.C. Booth built for the Georgia State Tournament in 2005. I don’t remember exactly what place it got, but am pretty sure in placed in the top 3. This bridges uses the typical design for that year, with slight modifications

This is an older bridge I came across when browsing through my old Science Olympiad photos. I used both Balsa and Basswood to build this bridge. This bridge was part of my design process which ended up with my SO winning bridge in 2004

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!

This is the first in reviving my question and answer posts. When I receive a well asked question, I will answer it and post some of the dialogue here.

These two questions are dealing with making an elevated bridge, very similar to the Science Olympiad challenge.

Science Olympiad is bringing back the Bridge Building event in 2009, except in a modified form. The event for ’09 is Elevated Bridge, which will provide an interesting and refreshing challenge. The draft rules that soinc.org are very interesting and make for a good read. Check them out as the new bridge event looks to [...]

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, [...]

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. This was a very good idea, but my construction skills at the time were not the best. In theory an I-beam is excellent for bridges, but I [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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. • • • • Share This!

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 [...]

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 the [...]

Objective: To build a boomilever with the greatest efficiency. Basic Design: There are two basic types of boomilevers. First is the tension boomilever, where the tension chord is longer than the compression chord. Second there is the compression boomilever, which is the opposite of the tension. It is generally accepted that the tension boomilever is [...]

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 [...]

Yesterday (Nov. 11, 2006) was the Science Olympiad competition, the Westminster Invitational. This has to be one of the earliest tournaments in Science Olympiad. Normally the invitationals aren’t until January. The boomilevers there were not impressive (including mine). Only one boomilever had an efficiency score over 200, which did happen to be mine. I placed [...]

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 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 [...]

My first event was Circuit Lab, which I don’t know much about. My partner ended up doing most of the work, I helped connecting wires when I could.Rocks and Minerals went okay, or so I thought. Ended up with 7th. My tower broke too soon, weighing 6.5 and only holding 6.8kg. At least I worried [...]

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, laminated [...]

This tower was 24 inches tall, 6 inches wide at the base, tapering to a 1 & 1/2 inch square at the middle. This tower weighed 7.0 grams, and held 11kg for 2nd place at the 2005 GA Science Olympiad State Finals. I am in the middle of building a tower for my Science Olympiad [...]

An L-beam is more efficient than a square the same width. It is not going to hold as much, but it is going to be more efficient. An L-beam is also more efficient than a square with the same mass of wood. Of course, you have to count in the glue weight for an L-beam.Balsa, [...]

Question: What’s your take on the new scoring. Do you think the bridge should just aim at holding 15 kg… or try to build one that’s lighter and hold less possibly getting a higher efficiency score? I used to think that you should go lighter, holding less. But now I think that you should aim [...]

Today was our Science Olympiad regionals. Being busy all day, I didn’t get a chance to watch but two towers being tested. But there weren’t any terribly impressive ones there, mine being 8.6 grams, and the next 12.4. There was one major complication. Instead of being provided with sand to load our towers as the [...]