Gluesticks

My bridge with ice cream sticks and glue?

My teacher told me to make a bridge as light as possible, and can withstand 30kg of weight. Any suggestions about what kind of bridge i should make? Can also tell me why? thanks in advance. Length must be 80cm long and 10 cm wide.

Public Comments

1. I would say buy some steel wire at the hardware store, the popsicle stick idea might go well with that, if you drill holes in them and secure them together with the wire. The glue might break. Steel wire is light and can hold a lot of weight. Inexpensive too. Good luck!
2. a truss bridge is the strongest
3. I made one of thoes in 9th grade. Yea you don't want to make it how I made it, cause it broke lol. AND I had someone helping me build it. Bridges are hard. They only gave us a cirtain amount of sticks we can use. I got nothing for you, just relating sorry.
4. Triangular supports. X Draw on paper several Xs in 3D. Connect the top points of the Xs, length wise. Connect each X across, horizontally, at the top points and then you can build the "roadway" by laying sticks, length wise, on the cross pieces. You'll get the picture. If you have a limited number of sticks to worth with, you'll have to play around with length.
5. Remember triangles are more stabile than other shapes so you could make a bridge like this ___________________ \ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ / _\/__\/__\/__\/__\/__\/_
6. The short answer: Build a beam bridge. http://www.design-technology.org/beambridges.htm It's basically like a log across a stream but with a beam instead. Why: Beams have a good strength to weight ratio. By using a box, I, or L beam they may be as strong as the solid beams but are a lot lighter. All construction uses beams in some form or another. You can go one step further and build a truss bridge http://www.matsuo-bridge.co.jp/english/bridges/basics/truss.shtm using beams ofcourse. The longer answer: There are four basic bridge designs but your choices are limited because an arch bridge http://www.design-technology.org/archbridges.htm would require a solid abutment and a suspension bridge http://www.design-technology.org/suspensionbridges.htm would require a solid anchorage. I admit that I am not familiar with the cantilever design. http://www.design-technology.org/bridges.htm