Popsicle Stick Bridge Examples

Pin Joint Popsicle Stick Bridge

At our college earlier this year, we had to build a bridge using popsicle sticks within one hour. We were provided with about 60 sticks, a cushion of office pins and a tube of super-glue. I have attached a picture of the bridge we constructed, that eventually won the first place. I’m sorry I don’t have a better picture to show you.

Popsicle Arch Bridge

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.

Popsicle Bridge Holds 500 lbs.

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

Popsicle Stick Suspension Bridge

I have always wanted to build a model suspension bridge, and finally I have finished one. This is a popsicle stick suspension bridge. I created it from scratch, coming up with the design on my own. After testing it to failure I learned quite a bit about how suspension bridges react to loads. This model suspension bridge uses popsicle sticks as the main building material. The decking is cardboard, and the “cables” are 550 parachute cord (military surplus)

Prairie Popsicle Stick Bridge

This is a popsicle stick bridge I built while in the last few weeks of my fall college semester. I used 924 popsicle sticks to build this bridge. This bridge was 5 feet long, 10 inches tall, and 8 inches wide. I had to sort through 2600 popsicle sticks to find enough usable ones. The first testing of the bridge consisted of 220 pounds worth of weights. The second testing included putting a piece of plywood on top of the bridge and me standing on it (170 pounds). We noticed that one end diagonal chord was bending tremendously, so I decided to call off any more testing until I could repair that one piece

Seattle Annual Popsicle Stick Bridge Competition

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. They score the bridges on efficiency (I won at that!) and aesthetics.

Short Howe Truss Popsicle Bridge

I built this popsicle stick bridge to complete my short popsicle bridge series. This bridge uses the Howe Truss design. Previous to this I had built bridges using the Pratt and Warren trusses. This bridge was 13.5 inches long and used 50 popsicle sticks. It ended up holding 117 pounds before failing.

Short Pratt Truss Bridge

This is a popsicle stick bridge I built using the Pratt Truss design. This bridge is 13.5 inches long, 4 inches tall, and 3.75 inches wide. This bridge weighed about 70 grams and held 73 pounds before breaking. I used 46 popsicle sticks to build this bridge. That gives it an efficiency score of 474

Short Pratt Truss Bridge Updated

This is the updated design of my Short Pratt Truss Bridge made from popsicle sticks. The only difference was the addition of 4 more popsicle sticks in key areas. I doubled up the angled sticks on each end, and made the lateral bracing into an X shape rather than a zig-zag pattern

Short Warren Truss Popsicle Bridge

This popsicle stick bridge was made from 40, unmodified popsicle sticks. The bridge spanned 12 inches, was 4 inches tall and 3 inches wide. I used only Elmer’s white glue to build the bridge. It weighed 57.4 grams (0.13 pounds), and held 90 pounds. Its efficiency score was 712.

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…

World’s Longest Popsicle Stick 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.

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