Drew’s science fair was this past Friday, and he won a special award/ribbon for a “Superior” project. I’ve attached photos of he with his tri-fold board. He built/destroyed two bridges in order to prove his hypothesis, and so built a third (as seen in the photo) to show his classmates what they’d looked like. He … Read more
We started our bridge program last year in my beginning engineering and manufacturing classes. I wanted to make a bridge that was very complicated with simple rules that required them to have to work on the mathematics of the bridge. I wanted to stress the strength of the truss design, so within the rules, I made it … Read more
I decided, for the 50th birthday of the Verrazano Bridge, to put together a model. I always loved the bridge; I lived in its shadow in Brooklyn for years and now live on Staten Island, so I use it often. Being a 2 year dad, I get little time to work on it, and when … Read more
For this balsa wood bridge, I used a ‘K-Truss’ design with seven vertical members and 6 ‘K-Trusses’ per side. The K’s were the most challenging part of the build, because I had to calculate each ones length, and the approximate measure of the angle I had to cut into each one. All in all, the … Read more
This album highlights the Popsicle Stick Bridge that I entered into the Seattle ASCE Younger Member Forum’s Popsicle Stick Bridge Competition in 2009. This particular entry swept all first place prizes in every category: efficiency, aesthetics, and poster. It’s 30 inches long, 11 inches tall, 5 inches wide, weighs just under…
Hello! As promised, here are some pics of our bridge we entered into Jackson State Univ’s Mathematics & Engineering Fair (Jackson, MS). We were amongst what appeared to be a lot of other folks that were just as clueless as us about bridge building! This is our first effort, so a win is a win, … Read more
Basswood model bridge example (built by Mr. Carlton) for students competing in the MSPE competition at MSU April 4th.
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
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.
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.