Science Fair Materials and Procedure.

Materials

 Supports: Tongue Depressors / Popsicle sticks. If neither then straws might be used.
 Weights: Pre measured book
 Platform: plywood piece or cardboard chunk (if strong enough)
 Scale of some sort to measure weights.
 Scissors (if using straws)
 Brads (to connect tongue depressors together.)
Procedure
1) Hypothesize on what you believe the shape will be that is the best support.
2) Collect the materials
3) Measure the weight of the books that will be placed on the platform.
4) Begin construction of bridge using either equilateral triangular, square, rectangle, or a
rhombus for supports.
5) After construction is complete check over that all Popsicle sticks are correctly connected
otherwise that might throw off the data.
6) Now place the weight on your plywood platform. Do not drop it down as that produces
more force on the supports, just lightly set it on the platform.
7) Depending on if it holds, continue to add books wait a little bit between each one you
place as the supports might not instantly fall apart.
8) Once it finally falls apart. List the number of books it was able to steadily hold and the
number of books that caused it to collapse. Also if possible list how it collapsed
Ex. did a popsicle stick break or did it just fall over etc.
9) Rebuild the support using the same shape and repeat the trial again and record the data
for the 2nd and 3rd try.
Once you have repeated this process for each shaped support check over the data and see
if there is any anomalous data in the recorded trials. If there is repeat the trial over for
that shape and record the new results.
Compare the data of how much weight it could hold and see if there is a
correlation between the shape and how it collapses.
After comparing the shapes see if the one that was able to hold the most
books was the one you hypothesized about earlier.

Record which shape is the strongest and if there is a correlation to a shape and how it
collapses make sure also to put down the table of data which you recorded for the trials.
Form your conclusion on what might’ve made it better, and whether it supported your
hypothesis or not.