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Take care to make the glued connections neat, aligning the craft sticks to form tidy equilateral triangles. It’s clear that the classical Greeks, for all their genius, knew little or nothing about building with triangle trusses. The Romans dabbled, but examples of Roman structures that use trusses are few and far between.

How to Build a Strong Popsicle Stick Bridge
Finally, the voussoirs are the wedge-like pieces that make up the arch’s curved structure. Here we have a shot of the bridge holding some weights. Also you will see the analysis of this Howe Truss Bridge as shown by the free Bridge Designer program. This picture shows how the forces were spread out on the bridge at the time it failed. Notice how the forces are concentrated much higher in the middle of the top and bottom chords, as well as on the end angled members.
Directions for a Strong Bridge

I generally kept the clamps on for at least 30 minutes. You want to make sure that you have a lot of clamps so you can make more that one triangle at a time. This is a very simple yet elegant looking bridge that I built over Christmas break. This bridge spanned 16 inches and was made from 48 popsicle sticks. It held 75 pounds, which was right at what I was expecting. At our college earlier this year, we had to build a bridge using popsicle sticks within one hour.
Students, engineers team up on popsicle stick bridge competition - Brainerd Dispatch
Students, engineers team up on popsicle stick bridge competition.
Posted: Fri, 26 May 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Alternative Bridge Designs With Popsicle Sticks
It is also important to take safety precautions and use protective gear such as gloves and goggles when handling hot glue. The second layer is a half stick on each end (I cut them) and a whole stick in the middle, which holds the bottom layer together. Not only will your child be able to paint the sticks freely, but they will get to see what the bridge looks like when put together. If you’re really into calculations, here’s a good article breaking down the forces in each of the beams with all of the calculations to go along with it. We placed a cutting board on top of the bridge so that she could stand on it, then we had her stand on it.
In 1850, Squire Whipple designed the first Warren truss bridge in America. Building popsicle stick bridges is one of my favorite activities to do in my spare time. I have built many popsicle bridges over the years, and love coming up with new designs. A huge focus of my bridges is designing blueprints that are easy to build and structurally sound at the same time. You can purchase many of my plans and blueprints in my store. It is about eighteen inches long and five and a half inches high.
How to build a truss bridge with only Popsicle sticks and glue
Other strong designs include truss, balsa wood, and small beam bridges. Making popsicle stick bridges is a fun and educational project for kids of all ages. Children love to build things and popsicle stick bridge building is the perfect way to test if their bridge design will actually work.
Popsicle Stick Bridge Projects Kids Can Build
Wait 30 minutes for white glue to dry; afterwards, remove clothespins. In conclusion, each triangle will support 44.9N at the bottom and 67.38N at the sides.
He accidentally transposed certain critical areas that needed additional reinforcing with areas that did not require reinforcing. This resulted in the bridge carrying 50 pounds at the time of failure. With my original design, the bridge would have held more than 100 pounds quite easily. In this project, we’ll make a model Warren truss bridge.
Popsicle Stick Bridge Tips
The next step was to attach some popsicle sticks to the top to connect the points and make a replica for the other side of the bridge. The 100 stick popsicle bridge challenge is on. This Howe Truss bridge uses 99 popsicle sticks, spans 21 inches, and holds 200+ pounds. This is an updated version of my old “Popsicle Bridge #3” which was the same length, but slightly different in construction.
Attach 1/3 of Popsicle stick with white glue on the middle of a triangle side where it will overlap with the other. Add hot glue on the Popsicle piece and the ends of that side and attach the other triangle. Add a clothespin to the part with white glue. Repeat this step until all triangles are attached. What is interesting about this is that it is no longer actually a truss at all—it is a tied arch. If this is done right, we can design the upper arch portion out of Popsicles to take only compression load, and the nylon cable will take all of the tension.
Box girder bridges consist of a hollow rectangular section that spans across two or more supports. The box shape provides extra strength and stiffness to the bridge. Create a sturdy arch bridge with just popsicle sticks. The triangular design makes it stronger and unbreakable, perfect for a simple and fun project for kids or a school project. Follow step-by-step instructions from various sources including Garrett’s Bridges and YouTube tutorials for building a strong and unique bridge using only popsicle sticks.
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