Toothpick Bridge Competition

Toothpick Bridge Competition

The toothpick bridge building contest since 1997. The goal of the contest is to design the strongest bridge using only wooden toothpicks and glue. In the process of designing, building and destroying bridges, student study the strenght of the structure with intelligent. The project mostly to those for engineering student. to test the strenght of the bridges by seeing how much weight it can hold and continue to add weight until the bridges breaks. the lighter of the bridges also give an advantage for the bridges to win by dividing with how many weight it can hold. 

Rules

1	The bridge must be built only of round wooden toothpicks and glue for woodwork.
2	Total length of the bridge 300mm
3	20mm at the ends of the bridge must be free any features.
4	Weights will be placed on the structure at mid-span. the bridge must hold its shape at least 10 seconds.

At this load level. most competitors had fallen out due to damaged bridge and cannot sustain the burden, although only our group being the last group still standing but we must keep going until we got damaged of bridge.

As the load is not sufficient to be load and up to the maximum load does not give any effect, then our group is the winner. Alhamdulilah

So, the secret tips to build this toothpick bridge. we do not do as they please, we think strategy first. we do not emphasize the beautiful of design. the rules say the bridge which can accommodate a lot of burden will win, for us pretty not takes into consideration. but the design plays an important role, because the design of the bridges will determined whether the bridge strong or not.In designing a bridge, you must consider the type of force that will be applied to the bridge. so in this post, i cannot show their calculation and forces at the bridges. you must find and calculated by ur self.

Firstly, to create such a products or so whatever. we must start with sketching and design. the beam bridge without thrust it's difficult to the bridge to hold a lot of weight.. that's why the thrust bridge is built. if you can see. most bridge in the world have triangle thrust. for your knowledge. triangle is a geometric shape that have flexibility properties. Additionally. the use of triangles within the thrust allows it to dissipate the load through out the thrust  work.

Drawing

Simulation of bridge

if you can see the red circle on the picture .. here is our secret tips. the technique to glue is an important thing to be taken. the glue technique we call is spider man web technique haha.LOL. as u can see the excess glue as a spider's web

so that's all i can share to those engineering student who will take the competition. hope you enjoy  =)

worldwide competition

 My Group =D

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