Here is a short, fun video showing creative bridge designs from very limited supplies. These bridges were required to be under 5oz in weight, but only had to span 8 inches. I like this video because it is pretty clear why each bridge failed. Can you see a major design issue that could be improved … Read more
The Arizona Science Lab presents information on types of beams used for building bridges. They show the huge difference in resistance to bending between a flat beam and an I Beam. Then different types of truss designs are shown and explained. Afterwords the students are given supplies to build their own bridges, and this video … Read more
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.
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.
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…
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
I like this video because it is very systematic and well documented. The video shows a Balsa wood bridge built for a statics project. The bridge ended up with an efficiency score of 514.
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 is a video I found on YouTube of an excellent bridge built for the Troitsky Bridge Building Competition. The only materials allowed for this competition are popsicle sticks, toothpicks, dental floss, and white glue. This is a very impressive bridge. It weighed 1.17kg and held 805kg. That gives it an efficiency score of 688
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