Building spaghetti bridges......

[Chuck Wintle]

My son has informed me he will have to build a bridge out of spaghetti for a class project. Does anyone have any tips on how best to do this? Apparantly it will have to span 1 meter and will be tested for how much weight it can hold at its center point. Spaghetti and epoxy glue are the only materials allowed.

[Tyler Howell]

Use some of my X's cooking it is real tough and will hold up to anything:D]

[Steve Inniss]

Charles,
My son and a partner built a bridge in 2001 for a science project when we were living in Massachusetts. It was weight tested as well, which unfortunately wrecks it! He has the award plaque though.
It was built of popsicle sticks. Spaghetti is an interesting twist - especially considering the span.
You might find some useful info here: http://bridgecontest.usma.edu/manual.htm It starts off with making a bridge out of manilla folders.
Good luck to the future engineer.-Steve

[Paul Smith]

Don't cook the spaghetti!!!

[Pete Lamberty]

The first thought that comes to mind is to glue the spaghetti together so that it looks like steel truses. They can be either a long bar on the top and bottom held together by a web of triangles. Or there are also steel truses that have one bar on top and two on the bottom. A cross section of this type would look lik a triangle. Going with a more unusual quick thought. Could you cook the spaghetti just enough so it would bend and then shape a bunch of them into long cables. Then let them dry to the desired shape. Just a thought. Pete



OTE=Charles Wintle]My son has informed me he will have to build a bridge out of spaghetti for a class project. Does anyone have any tips on how best to do this? Apparantly it will have to span 1 meter and will be tested for how much weight it can hold at its center point. Spaghetti and epoxy glue are the only materials allowed.[/QUOTE]

[Steve Inniss]

[QUOTE=Pete Lamberty] Going with a more unusual quick thought. Could you cook the spaghetti just enough so it would bend and then shape a bunch of them into long cables. Then let them dry to the desired shape. Just a thought. Pete

Pete, Brilliant idea! Twisted into suspension cables! -might work great. Shhhh, don't tell the other kids.

[Tyler Howell]

It's a wonder anyone gets anything done with such good help:D

[Dave Richards]

This reminds me of a contest run by my woodworking professor when I was in college. We had to build a very small kite. No dimension greater than 6". I made a little diamond kite using spaghetti for the spars. It flew great--I even considered making a box kite after the first flight.

Unfortunately, on the day of the annual picnic and kite fly in, the humidity was near 100%. By the time we got around to flying the kites, mine had wilted. :p

As far as the bridge thing is concerned, could you get away with sealing the pasta with the epoxy? That would strengthen the spaghetti and also prevent it from being affected by moisture in the air.

Would it break the rules to build beams in which the long members are spaghetti and the webs are epoxy? I'm not talking the 5 minute epoxy-in-tubes but the stuff in jugs.

How about building longer beams from the spaghetti by bundling and staggering joints? 7 pieces of spaghetti would make a nice bundle--6 in a hexagon with one in the middle. Epoxy these together to make long members and do a standard truss type bridge. You could also form 2 or 3 one meter long arches by epoxying the spaghetti beams in place over a form covered in packing tape or other plastic film.

Good luck. I hope you take some pictures and post them.

[Ian Barley]

My son has informed me he will have to build a bridge out of spaghetti for a class project. Does anyone have any tips on how best to do this? Apparantly it will have to span 1 meter and will be tested for how much weight it can hold at its center point. Spaghetti and epoxy glue are the only materials allowed.

Sounds like fun. I would guess that you have to start with some experimentation and some thinking about the characteristics of spaghetti.

Uncooked spaghetti is probably pretty strong (in comparison to weight) in comression and tension but not so good in torsion. Cooked spaghetti is probably useless in compression and tension but pretty good in torsion. What happens if you cook spaghetti, plait it like a cable while its wet and then let it dry? (I don't know but I might just try it to find out!) Does it go back to the brittle state of dry pasta?

Are there any quantity limitations on the spaghetti or the glue? can you use different diameters of spaghetti so that you can mix them into a denser bundle.

A quick search turned up this URL with what looks like an interesting start on some designs.

http://www.jracademy.com/~wwedler/WilliamsBridgeHomepage.html

Sounds like a great project - let us know how he gets on.

[David Klug]

Hey Tyler, way to make friends and influence people. lol

DK

[Robert Mickley]

When I was living in KS I had a young enginering student living next door, he had to build one for class. I forget now how much it held but he came in 2nd in his class

I found a bunch of stuff on it

http://www.metacrawler.com/info.metac/search/web/spaghetti%2Bbridges

this one was pretty interesting

http://www.rothesayhigh.ca/grassroots/bridges/sb.htm

[Chuck Wintle]

Well my son constructed a spaghetti bridge using a high arch design. Today was the competition with the other teams. His bridge held the most at 44 pounds before it broke and the second place bridge held almost 31 pounds. I will post a pic of it as soon as I get it form my son.

[Glenn Clabo]

Way to go! A proud Pop, eh?

[Chuck Wintle]

This is the winning bridge.....

[Todd Burch]

Congrats to your son!!

[Robert Mickley]

Congrats!! isn't it amazing what spaghetti can do ? LOL

[Tyler Howell]

Chuck you did talk to my X didn't you??? Most of that stuff she said isn't true! ;)

Congrats to both of you.

[John Miliunas]

So, where's da meat'a balls?! :D Seriously, congrats to your son and his "coach"! :cool:

[Dave Richards]

That's a cool bridge. Congratulations. It's too bad they have to be tested to destruction.