Day 1: The Preparation

The Project

Hello bloggers of the internet! I am here to explain in detail the building of a Truss Bridge in my Physics class.  In case you don't know what a Truss Bridge looks like, take a peek below!

Of course, we don't have the time, money, or supplies to build a bridge of that style or magnitude... So! We will be building one that looks like the picture below with paper strips cut out of manila folders. 

This bridge will be consisting of four different types of materials. Those materials are: 4 tubes of 30 cm in length with 10 mm sides, 5 strips of 30 cm length by 2 mm width, 4 strips of 30 cm in length with 4 mm width, and 16 gussets that hold the bridge together. The gussets are made of normal printing paper and can be seen on the diagram above on spots A,B,C, and D.

The Process

On our first day of vigorous work, we used our trusty ruler to get near precise measurements on the 2 mm width from the manila folder. The manila folder was already 30 cm so we did not have to measure for the length. With our measurements, we made small marks on each side of the folder to CAREFULLY cut out the strips with an exacto knife. We continued this process and acquired the five strips with 2 mm width. We repeated the same process to get the four strips with 4 mm width. 

CAREFUL measurements.

Finished Strips

At the end of class we were able to finish measuring and cutting out the strips and they came out looking like below.

The 4 mm thick are on the left and the 2 mm thick on the right.