Paper Bridge

[Ginger_Warrior]

Put in some triangles. If you think about it, the only way to distort the shape of a triangle is to break it altogether. That's why supports for buildings whose foundations are slipping are triangular shaped.

[dsavi]

Any architects around here?

 

And yeah, like Ginger said, triangles will make your bridge strong.

[RichieMcD]

I'd say suspension bridge is your best bet but building that with paper would be very hard as you really need a rope or metal wire for the whole suspension part.

 

 

 

Try building something like the one Zox posted, make sure you use a lot of very tightly rolled up paper for support. Build it as if you were building it solely out of wood and steel. The rolled up paper is essentially your steel supports and the wood is your sheets of paper to fill the gaps.

 

 

 

EDIT: Ginger's idea of triangles is a very good one as they are very rigid and spread the wait equally if you build them either equilateral or isosceles, they can also spread the wait on the base over a much wider area than a standard cuboid type support.

[Cyco_Reborn]

I made a paper bridge, last year in science. One word: Cylinders. Cylinders are amazingly strong when you put them lengthways. If you can make a solid paper cylinder then you are likely to win. We used a load of cylinders bundled together into 1 big pillar and it managed to hold the teachers weight. The only problem, though, was balance. It always seemed to fall over easily.

[josh181830]

Max weight for bridge is 5 kg, sorry for the typo.

 

 

 

And now that I know WHAT to make, I'm looking for a way on HOW to make it..especially how to connect the joints.. :wall:

[Tim_Finch]

Triangles are the strongest geometrical shapes, base it off that, as others have said. When we had to make bridges out of toothpicks, I made a tiny triangular pyramid (finished the actual bridge, this was for fun). It held roughly 2-3x more than the strongest bridge in the class.

[krisc6]

An arch is probably the best in theory where the centre piece or segment takes teh weight and that applys pressure on the two unconnected parts of the arch.

 

 

 

Dude its one hell of a quandry :|