[--] Popsicle Stick Bridge Contest
Skelep School Students
Page 2 - from February 20, 2006
Test Results for Joints and Beams
Joint Test Results
[--]
Beam Test Results
[--] 		CONCLUSIONS:

We were surprised by some of the test results! They didn't always tell us what we expected. This too was a good lesson in quality control because our glueing job will have such a big impact on our strength results.

  1. Triangles are stronger than squares
  2. Doubled (multiple) joints are stonger than single
  3. Shorter beams are stronger than long beams
  4. Glued joints and laminations are very Very VERY important!
We took a look at the pictures of last year's strongest bridge. It was quite small and plain, but this seems to have won our hearts!

Maybe there will be a lot of bridges with a similar design this year!

We also talked about some bridge design theory

We talked about types of truss bridges, and about two
very important words for bridge designers:
Tension and Compression

>> Go to Page 3 >>