The Building of our Balsa Wood Bridge
Nina Harris, Thalia Ehrenpreis, and Stella Martin at Washington Latin Public CHarter School
Background:
The balsa Wood project incorporated
many domains such as Developing and
using models.We create an Accurate
Schematic design with the exact
measurements of each piece of wood and
the angle it created. To get these exact
measurements we used trigonometry
(sin, cos, tan). A lot of research went
into this poster as all the sources we had
listed the TrUss Bridge to be the most
secure and lightest of all bridge
options.our triangulate desgin was
taken because triangles are known to be
the strongest shape.
objective:Build a bridge with a strength
to weight ratio of 1.
EX. Your bridge is 6 grams, it can carry 6
pounds.
Materials
● Short Balsa wood (30 cm)
● Long Balsa Wood (3 feet)
● Wood glue
● X-Acto Knife
Figure 1: Schematic design
v glue trying to keep them as stable as
5200 2nd St NW, Washington, DC 20011
design process:
Figure 2 Measuring wood
Stella MeasurIng the wood so when we put
the pieces together it will be the right size
Figure 4:Setting up wood
v v
Every time we went to a new part of the bridge
we would set up where the wood would go so
that we would see if the piece of wood would
fit and how it fit with the rest of the bridge
Figure 3:Cutting wood
Cutting the wood the exact size we measured the
too
Figure 5: Gluing pieces together
We then glued pieces together with wood
possible while glueing
Data and results:
Figure 7:THe score sheet Figure 8: Broken bridge
Every tally show 1 cup of sand our Our bridge after it held 11 pounds
bridge was able to hold
Conclusion:
● Our bridge carried 11 pounds and our bridge weighed 17.63 grams.
● Our objective wasn’ t met because our strength to weight ratio wasn’t
over one
● Our design was pretty good as it was well planned out and pretty strong
though we didn’t think it would be as heavy as it was
● A design flaw our bridge had was that the support stick in the middle
was bent at an angle meaning that the bridge probably didn't have
proper support.
● Another Design Flaw was that we didn't want to add too much weight
So we did not laminate the bottom of the bridge which means that the
bottom of the bridge wan’t as supported as it needed to be
● One change that we made to our design was that we scrapped the roof
and replaced it with additional pieces as we discovered the roof we made
didn’t actually fit the bridge properly
Sources:
Boon, G. (2021, November 19). Truss series: K truss analysis – garrett's bridges. Garrets
Bridges. Retrieved March 22, 2023, from
https://www.garrettsbridges.com/design/k-truss-analysis/
Boon, G. (2021, December 3). Truss series: Truss design overview. Garrets Bridges. Retrieved
March 22, 2023, from https://www.garrettsbridges.com/design/trussdesign/
Vanpoucke, T. (n.d.). Balsa Wood Bridge : 17 Steps. Instructables. Retrieved March 22, 2023,
from https://www.instructables.com/Balsa-Wood-Bridge/