The material limit
Because the amount of wood was fixed, every piece needed a reason to be there. Extra reinforcement in the wrong place would use up material without helping much.
Log entry 007 · Structural build · Middle-school competition
Material-Limited Truss Bridge
The bridge load test from middle school.
Entry notes
The competition gave everyone the same limited amount of material. I do not have the exact final load written down anymore. I do remember that this bridge held the most and won the class test.
- Test result
- 1st recorded
- Material limit
- Fixed design constraint
- Project photos
- 4 in this entry
The truss pattern
The repeated side trusses carry the span. Cross-bracing ties the sides together, keeps the deck square, and helps with twisting as the load increases.
The test
The final part was simply adding load until the bridge failed. I kept the two original clips below even though the exact weight is missing from my notes.
Saved clips
The original load-test clips.
These are the two recordings I still have from the day of the test.
End of entry