All Examples

100 Stick Popsicle Bridge: 21″ Howe Truss

The 100 stick popsicle bridge challenge is on. This Howe Truss bridge uses 99 popsicle sticks, spans 21 inches, and holds 200+ pounds. It’s efficiency score is 678. This is an updated version of my old “Popsicle Bridge #3” which was the same length, but slightly different in construction.

2004 Science Olympiad Bridge

This bridge won the 2004 GA State Science Olympiad Bridge Building competition. It weighed 9.47 grams, spanned 35cm, and held 15kg without breaking. The efficiency score was 1584. This bridge…

2011 Maine Transportation Conference

Video highlighting the top three bridges from the Maine Transportation Conference Popsicle Stick Bridge Contest. These bridges are quite impressive, with the winner holding 1278 pounds before breaking. The commentary on this video contains useful observations and thoughtful opinions from the video makers.

Albury High School Popsicle Bridge record breaker!

We run a comp here at Albury High in Australia for our Yr 12 Engineering Studies students involving max. 50 popsicle sticks, PVA wood glue and 2m of extra strong thread.  Structures have to span 400mm and are centrally loaded.  Here’s a photo of our 2010 winner which weighed in at 69 grams and held 58kgs giving an efficiency using the formula on your website if i used it correctly of around 12000!

Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge

This bridge is the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge which is over the Cooper River in Charleston, South Carolina. It is North America’s largest cable stayed bridge. I got these photos…

ASL Bridges Class, Feb, 2012

The Arizona Science Lab presents information on types of beams used for building bridges. They show the huge difference in resistance to bending between a flat beam and an I…

Balsa and Basswood Arch Bridge

This is an older bridge I came across when browsing through my old Science Olympiad photos. I used both Balsa and Basswood to build this bridge. This bridge was part of my design process which ended up with my SO winning bridge in 2004

Balsa Tower

Balsa wood tower with four sides and zig zag bracing

This balsa tower was 12 inches tall, 8 inches wide at the base, and tapered to a 2 inch square at the top. I only have about forty pounds of…

Balsa Wood Bridge Statics Project

I like this video because it is very systematic and well documented. The video shows a Balsa wood bridge built for a statics project. The bridge ended up with an efficiency score of 514.

Balsa Wood K Truss Bridge

Here is a bridge using the K truss design made from Balsa wood. This bridges uses a combination of end and lap joints. You can see that where the slanted…

Basic Arch Popsicle Stick Bridge

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.

Bates Tech Balsa Wood Bridge Competition 2011

Here are the video results from the Bates Tech Balsa Wood Bridge Competition 2011. This simple video footage of the competition makes for a good learning opportunity. This video includes a variety of designs that are interesting to observe if you are looking to build a balsa wood bridge.

Booth’s Bridge

Yes, this is one of the coolest bridges I have ever seen. Built by J.C. Booth Middle for the Science Olympiad Georgia State Finals in 2003, it placed 3rd. For…

Chamblee’s Bridge

Chamblee has always done well in Bridge Building. In 2001, they won the State finals in this event. This bridge is from the 2003 GA State Tournament, the same tournament…

Concept Alpha Bridge

I was never able to fully develop and use this bridge. I got this idea from talking with a Science Olympiad coach in Ohio. Now I wish I had gone…

Coolest Popsicle Bridge

I have a bridge I built for a physics for engineers class I’m taking in cegep (QUEBEC). My partner and I didn’t have much confidence in it, but it blew the competition away! We primarily focused on keeping the weight of the bridge down. The bridge weighed in at 211 grams.

Dombiggers 1st bridge

A very nice looking Balsa wood bridge sent in from one of my readers. This bridge uses gussets and pin joints and spans 18 inches.

Drew’s Science Project

Drew’s science fair was this past Friday, and he won a special award/ribbon for a “Superior” project. I’ve attached photos of he with his tri-fold board. He built/destroyed two bridges…

Fernbank Project: Strongest Bridge Design

I built this bridge for the 2005 Fernbank Science Center bridge design event. The bridge spanned 16 inches, weighed 37 grams, and held 346 pounds. That puts its efficiency over 4200! One commenter said, “So if this bridge weighed one pound, it could have held up my car.”

First attempt at a DIY model bridge

It’s taken me just under 48 hours to get this far. Although i wouldn’t say its completely finished.. it’s a good as. I might just polish it off with a lick of paint and other aesthetically pleasing type things. As you can see, I’ve modeled it on the Pratt Truss. Although, I didn’t do any “real” plans, just rough drawings

First Timer’s First Bridge Design

Hello everybody my name is First Timer and I had to make a balsa wood bridge with theses specs: 40.5 cm long, 11-12 cm wide 13-25 cm high, must have a span of 26 cm, peek of the span must be at least 9 cm, and this bridge could weigh no more than 16 grams

First Timer’s Second Bridge Design!

Hey guys it’s me again, First Timer. Taking the critiques you guys gave, I rebuilt the bridge. This was going to a county Science Fair which I think is pretty cool considering I started learning about bridges about 2 months ago. The specs of the bridge are

Greentop Road Bridge

Pictures taken on October 5, 2006. This is only of the few historic bridges that is still in use. I am glad to have found it. The metal does not…

Hell Gate Bridge 1/4 Scale

This post features one of the most intricate reader submitted bridges I have ever received. This is a model of the Hell Gate Bridge built by High Iron Models. Excellent work.

High School Bridge Building

We started our bridge program last year in my beginning engineering and manufacturing classes. I wanted to make a bridge that was very complicated with simple rules that required them to…

Howe Truss Bridge

This bridge was definitely not my best, but it does bring back memories. It was the second bridge built by my old Science Olympiad Bridge Building partner, David, and I….

Howe Truss Bridge

Have you wanted to make a strong popsicle stick bridge that used 100 popsicle sticks or less? This popsicle bridge was made from 98 unmodified popsicle sticks and WeldBond glue….

I Beam Bridge

This was one of my earlier bridges. I built it after talking with my uncle, who is a mechanical engineer. He suggested that I try using an I-beam. This was…

Ice Cream Stick Tower

Here is an ice cream stick structure made up from 200 sticks, which carried 30kg. of weight. Submitted by Sandip Babar. Questions from Garrett Thanks for sharing!

J.C. Booth State Bridge 2005

Here is the Science Olympiad bridge J.C. Booth built for the Georgia State Tournament in 2005. I don’t remember exactly what place it got, but am pretty sure in placed in the top 3. This bridges uses the typical design for that year, with slight modifications

K-NEX Bridge for Fun!

Hey guys it’s me again, First Timer. I came up with a good way to practice bridge building either before or for the next competition and/or just to keep your bridge building skills good, whether it be science fair or science olympiad. It’s building different bridge designs with K-NEX, Erector Sets, and/or LEGOs. Most of you probably own one or more of the following and it really helps practicing basic truss design

K-Truss bridge for Wake Tech engineering class

This bridge is supporting 191lbs of weight. It didn’t break, that was all the weight we could fit in the trash can. I believe this is close to the maximum load it could hold because the platform the jig is resting on was significantly bowed. The rest of the structure was rock solid. The construction of the bridge is popsicle sticks

Masterpiece Popsicle Stick Bridge

This album highlights the Popsicle Stick Bridge that I entered into the Seattle ASCE Younger Member Forum’s Popsicle Stick Bridge Competition in 2009. This particular entry swept all first place prizes in every category: efficiency, aesthetics, and poster. It’s 30 inches long, 11 inches tall, 5 inches wide, weighs just under…

Matt’s Balsa Bridge

We had some of our cousins spend the weekend with us. After the initial greetings, Matt asked me, “Can we go finish the bridge?” We had started building a bridge…

Model Covered Bridge

Garrett-Jobs well done – interesting site and information!We built a 1/8″ scale model bridge just like the bridges we build for production. We successfully loaded it with 345 pounds with…

Monstrous Popsicle-stick Cantilever bridge

These are some pictures of a bridge I built mainly out of boredom, but also since I have an interest in engineering. It’s a large cantilever bridge, meaning it has two arms that extend beyond their piers that hold up a center suspended span. It’s 10′ 2″ long and as of right now is hanging across my bedroom ceiling

My 1st Bridge

I just found some old photos of my first ever Science Olympiad bridge from 2000. The bridge weighed 58 grams if my memory serves me well. It held the entire…

New River Bridge

Some friends of mine recently took a road trip to to PA. On the way, they stopped by a famous bridge and took this awesome picture: This is the New…

Nic’s Popsicle Stick Bridge

Nic’s design held a weight of 224kg and had a final efficiency of 1020. It did not shear or snap at any member, but bowed in the second third of member C-E. This member did have angled bracing to stop bowing and this brace did not snap it was only the glue joins in this brace that failed. The truss ballooned out at the point when 2.2kN of force was applied. It was at this point that the test was stopped

Pin Joint Popsicle Stick Bridge

At our college earlier this year, we had to build a bridge using popsicle sticks within one hour. We were provided with about 60 sticks, a cushion of office pins and a tube of super-glue. I have attached a picture of the bridge we constructed, that eventually won the first place. I’m sorry I don’t have a better picture to show you.

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