Mr. Carlton’s personal bridge (Central High School Springfield, MO)
Basswood model bridge example (built by Mr. Carlton) for students competing in the MSPE competition at MSU April 4th.
Examples
Ice Cream Stick Tower
Here is an ice cream stick structure made up from 200 sticks, which carried 30kg. of weight. Submitted by Sandip Babar. Questions from Garrett What glue did you use to build this tower? Was this just for fun and what inspired your design? Did you learn anything from building this structure that you could share … Read more
2011 Maine Transportation Conference
Video highlighting the top three bridges from the Maine Transportation Conference Popsicle Stick Bridge Contest. These bridges are quite impressive, with the winner holding 1278 pounds before breaking. The commentary on this video contains useful observations and thoughtful opinions from the video makers.
New Popsicle Stick Suspension Bridge
Here is a sneak peak at one of my newest creations: a model suspension bridge made from popsicle sticks and parachute cord. This bridge was created as part of a custom project I was contracted to design. While I had been thinking about building a kit/blueprints for a popsicle stick suspension bridge, I had not been able to create one simple enough to replicate easily. However, I found a way to construct one with a simple method and this is the result.
Hell Gate Bridge 1/4 Scale
This post features one of the most intricate reader submitted bridges I have ever received. This is a model of the Hell Gate Bridge built by High Iron Models. Excellent work.
Bates Tech Balsa Wood Bridge Competition 2011
Here are the video results from the Bates Tech Balsa Wood Bridge Competition 2011. This simple video footage of the competition makes for a good learning opportunity. This video includes a variety of designs that are interesting to observe if you are looking to build a balsa wood bridge.
Ultimate Popsicle Bridge Design?
This is quite an interesting popsicle bridge video. The maker claims it is the “ultimate popsicle bridge design” because it held 600 pounds. He also states in the description that he spent a large amount of time optimizing the Warren Truss. This is also probably part of his “ultimate design” claim…
Dombiggers 1st bridge
A very nice looking Balsa wood bridge sent in from one of my readers. This bridge uses gussets and pin joints and spans 18 inches.
Video: Tips on Building Popsicle Bridges
Here is a video from youtube that is a young man giving advice on building popsicle stick bridges after building one of his own. I like his thought process although I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says. What do you think? Notice when he says he sacrificed making triangles to add beauty to the … Read more
Model Covered Bridge
Garrett- Jobs well done – interesting site and information! We built a 1/8″ scale model bridge just like the bridges we build for production. We successfully loaded it with 345 pounds with the weight being distributed all the way across the middle. Do you know of a formula where we can figure out that weight … Read more