This is The Agent speaking...

Nope, I lay no claim on that piece of crap, but I did do a bridge project once my freshman year of high school.  Did it for the science fair, "Which bridge is stronger?," and won first prize. 

This is The Agent speaking...

Nope, I lay no claim on that piece of crap, but I did do a bridge project once my freshman year of high school.  Did it for the science fair, "Which bridge is stronger?," and won first prize. 

*phew*

Nope, I lay no claim on that piece of crap, but I did do a bridge project once my freshman year of high school.  Did it for the science fair, "Which bridge is stronger?," and won first prize. 

Hey, we did that freshman year, too, for Integrated Chemistry/Physics. Mine snapped like a twig (well, they all did), but it got "Most Visually Pleasing." I don't actually think that was the category, because that phrase is a strict Lindsayism, but it sounds a lot better than, "Prettiest Bridge." Anyway, the teacher stopped before it was massively broken because he thought it was too pretty to completely crush, and he asked if he could keep it as an example for the previous years. I was proud and humiliated all at once. I designed a pretty bridge! But I built a piece of crap! Ah well.

I had to do that for AP Physics.  My one partner refused to let the rest of assemble the actual bridge, and so when he was gluing the one side of the bridge to the rest and I pointed out that he reverse it, he decided that it'd still work fine.

It didn't, the reversal on that side caused there to be a spiral twisting mode to the bridge and thus caused it to buckle much more quickly than had it been the other way around.  So instead of somethign designed to resist such a mode, it actually supported it.

Plus, he just tossed all the weights into the bucket without carefully placing them in there.

Argh! It still annoys me.

Built a Spaghetti bridge in a High school class: "Principles of Engineering".  We used a stress test machine (mini version) to test their yield point.  I designed mine to put most of its stress on the edges because it was inside a steel box, and the rules said, that it had to fit inside the box.  It fit snugly, and ended up holding up the best because it used the sides of the box to increase it's strength (and was the only bridge to use said structural help).  Since then I've learned there is now a rule in the assignment that the bridge can't touch the sides of the box...   

This is The Agent speaking...

I think the reason why I chose the bridge project for my sciene fair was beacause our class happened to miss out on the toothpick bridge project.  Of course for my bridge project I used balsa wood instead, so it took a lot more weight for my bridges to break.  Turned out the suspension bridge is stronger than a cable-stayed bridge of the same size.  Still, the cable-stayed bridge held a considerable amount of weight before buckling, making it more economical for smaller spans since traditional suspension bridges are more expensive.