Spagetti Bridge - Conceptual Designs (ME 380)

These bridges were created for our midterm in ME 380 (Mechanical Design Workshop) at the University of Waterloo.

Basically the task is to design a structure made from spaghetti and hot glue that is 5cm tall, with an upper loading area of 5cm x 5cm, and a base width that is greater than 7.5cm.

The bridges are marked based on their performance index (applied mass versus bridge mass). To receive a passing grade of 50%, a bridge must be able to hold 1kg for at least 10 seconds. After that initial test, the load is increased until the bridge fails. The instructions specify that the bridges are to be designed for the applied mass range from 1kg to 8kg. Therefore, the performance indexes are calculated based on a maximum applied load of 8kg. In other words, bridges that can hold more than 8kg are over-designed!

Stay tuned for video footage from the actual design contest.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• ME
• 380
• Midterm
• Spaghetti
• Bridge
• Design
• Contest
• Competition
• Team
• Leader
• RCH
• 110
• Load
• Performance
• Index
• Hot
• Glue
• Mark
• PI
• HJ
• Kwon
• Mechanical
• Engineering
• Workshop
• 3B
• Mech
• Structure
• Mass
• Weight
• 2010
• 2012
• Failure
• Test
• Destruction
• Eng
• Engineer
• University
• of
• Waterloo
• Ontario
• Canada