Objective: Using only the materials provided, build a bridge that will span a distance of 20 cm and support the weight of a 300 g mass. This competition is subject to the following conditions and limitations.

1. You may use pasta and hot-melt glue guns to construct your bridge .Caution the glue is hot :keep it off your skin.

2. The gap to be spanned is the 20 cm space between two vertical boards. The minimum width off the bridge is 4 cm. The bridge may only touch the top of each board. The bridge may not be glued to the boards.

3. The distance between adjacent strands of pasta in any direction must exceed 1 cm. (This rule is intended to prevent you from picking up a fistful of pasta and weldong it together with glue.)

4. The mass will be suspended from a wire attached to a soda straw placed at the midpoint of the bridge and perpendicular to the bridge.

5. The bridge must support the mass for a minimum of five seconds.

6.Students may choose to reduce the weight of a successful bridge and try again. Should the bridge subsequently fail, the score for this project will be 60.

7. Successful bridges will be scored as follows

60 pts + 40 pts (mass of lightest bridge / mass of your bridge)

Last edited 01/01/06