A2 -Staquet

My bridge is designed to be very cost effective while also being as strong as possible.  I used a simple truss design that should be relatively strong in supporting loads during the competition.  The bridge measures roughly 3.5 inches tall, 5 inches wide, and spans a total of 24 inches.  It is an overhead truss design with the bottom cord running the entire span, and the top cord resembling that of a trapezoid.  The interior bracing is composed of a series of triangles to give the bridge needed strength.  The cross members that spread the width of the bridge and are shown to be snapped into the gussets in a perpendicular fashion.  Figure 1 shows the bridge from the top view as well as the side view.  Figure 2 is a list of the amount and type of truss members and gusset plates needed to construct the bridge.  A final materials cost is also listed at the bottom of this figure.

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

 My bridge didn't experience much change during the design process besides the fact that the K'Nex gussets only allow for connections in 45 degree increments, a detail my prior designs weren't limited to.  I also was unaware of the dimensions of the K'nex gusset pieces seeing as they are not given, nor did I bring my set from home to reference.  This made it difficult to determine a proper geometrical layout for the bridge  that will actually work when I am in the lab.  I found that designing the bridge was difficult without the actual pieces.  This competition, being that it is so small scale, is something that will require a lot of trial and error; hands-on building and testing in the lab rather than drawing and typing.