Toothpick Span
- elizavetazhuravlev
- Nov 4, 2015
- 2 min read
The purpose of this project is to create a span made of toothpicks that spans 15cm.
The directions were to construct a pre-designed bridge span and to measure a load it can carry. Then to modify the pre-designed bridge span by adding a maximum of 6 more toothpicks and to measure the load it now can carry.
Me and my partner built a design that I would say was a bit complex. It used 30 toothpicks and for more information you can look at the pictures I provided (left).
For the second trial, we made the structure stronger by adding toothpicks onto the structure (right). This time, we used 36.
The span was able to hold more weight during the second trial. On the first trial, the structure held 571.5g. On the second trial, it held 671.8g. A bit of an improvement. The reason for failure in the first structure was that the structure twisted under pressure. On the second trial, the structure did not twist, it just cracked in the center due to the weight.
If I were to do this project again, I would change the structure of the span completely because I feel that the structure itself is not good for holding large amounts of weight. I would choose to build a structure that would have stronger supports for the weight and I would not make a structure squared or rectangular because those designs usually end up twisting.
For the second part of the project, me and my teammate recieved a completely new bridge span design to build. (Design B) It was different from the first design (Design B) we did because Design B had diagonal ends and Design A had straight ends.
The structure for trial 1 only held 669.8 grams (more info in slideshow). Trial 2 held 966.6 grams. We did not add any additional toothpicks, we only changed the way we built the structure. For trial 1, we cut off the intersections, but for trial 2, we made the intersections overlap on the structure.
Out of all the 4 trials that we completed, the seocnd trial of the second design held the wost weight out of them all (966.6g).
The next time I work on a similar project, I would spend more time to try to build the structure more carefully and precisely because that seems to be a big factor in the strength of the structure itself.
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