THE RESULTS ARE IN!

Over the last 5 weeks, everyone in the Structures and Material Science class has been trying to build the best possible bridge they could, and last week we were able to test what everyone in the class came up with. The results were very impressive. Many people predicted their 30g bridge to hold a weight in the few hundred gram range, however, some bridges held upwards of 15,000g... YES, 15,000g! Below are the final results for the entire class:

Strength to Weight Ratio
Stephanie Strouse	90
Christopher Bassett	103
Dylan Akers	121
Caleb Lehner	138
Jeremy Constable	144
Christopher Becker	182
Christopher Tosti	194
Charlie Clapp	243
Scott MacDougall	339
John Clapp	390
Aaron Rocha	413
Dylan Monroe	526
Turner Bohlen	740
Overall Load	grams
Dylan Akers	2185
Stephanie Strouse	2605
Jeremy Constable	3185
Christopher Bassett	3500
Caleb Lehner	3585
Christopher Becker	5085
Christopher Tosti	6785
John Clapp	8585
Scott MacDougall	14585
Aaron Rocha	14850
Charlie Clapp	15090
Dylan Monroe	15265
Turner Bohlen	24412

Before I tested my bridge, I was very pleased with my design and the way I built my bridge. I was confident that it would hold a good amount of weight and would not fail early. My design consisted of a large triangle shape for the main part of the bridge with many supports from top to bottom. My cross section is by far the most detailed part of my bridge, however, when I tested I was surprised to see that this part broke first. If I had a chance to go back and rebuild, I would definitely change my cross section and make it more connected to the rest of the bridge so weight would be transferred more evenly.

 

Below are some pictures of my bridge before testing:

 

Front View

Cross Section

-Chris Bassett