Trinity students test bridge-building skills

It took days for students to build bridges for Jane Shamitko’s physics II class but just seconds for them to come crashing down.
The Trinity High School seniors made the bridges out of toothpicks and glue. A few also used small Popsicle sticks. They said it took more than 70 hours to build each one.
“Every day during the blizzard, that’s all I did,” said 18-year-old Josh Ferguson.
The students had to research bridge design and determine what they thought would hold at least 5 kilograms, or 11 pounds.
Some students worked together, and the class built five different bridges. One was 6 feet long, while the rest were 3 feet long.
One at a time Wednesday, weights were added to the bridges to see how much they would hold.
Ferguson went first.
He placed a 1 kilogram weight in a bucket hanging on his bridge.
“I didn’t even hear it creak,” Shamitko said.
He slowly kept putting weights in the bucket. It started to crack at 10 kilograms.
When he put the 11th kilogram in, the bridge came crashing down, sending toothpicks flying.
Ferguson was happy with the results.
“Better than I expected,” he said.
The purpose of the project was to learn about bridge truss design, proper gluing and how to build a bridge, said 18-year-old Mike Smith.
He was the only student who chose not to put more than 5 kilograms on his bridge. As long as the bridges met that requirement, the students didn’t have to keep weighing them down until they snapped.
All of the bridges held at least 5 kilograms.
“I thought they would meet the requirements,” Shamitko said. “They had their doubts.”