1. Engineering 9 Including: Popsicle Bridge By: ZK and SO
Investigation/Design process
Planning process
Creating Process
Final Product

2. Introduction
IB statement of Inquiry: How do design limitations encourage creativity in technology?
Specification: We will be designing and creating a popsicle bridge based on our investigation. Then testing the design and refining the product. The bridge that holds the most weight will be the declared class “winner”.
Materials Provided: The materials provided to all teams. May not exceed the limits.
75 popsicle sticks
3 glue gun sticks
Drafting and sketching paper
If you would like to validate or check any of the documents, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
The IB Design Cycle

3. The Investigating & Design Process
The investigation and designing period was the most extensive part of the project.
We first investigated pre-existing bridges and their materials. As you can see.

4. After the bridge investigation, we started a rough draft/idea of possible bridges we deem effective to construct.
Truss
Arch Bridge
Arch-Truss
Pyramid

5. -doesn’t need to much popsicle sticks
Bridge
Pros
Cons
Truss bridge
-simple
-trustworthy
-doesn’t need to much popsicle sticks
-if built correctly is very durable
-very common
-not very creative
-too uncomplicated
Arch
-less complicated
-doesn’t need too much material
-different shape/base than others
-not appropriate for long distances
-symmetry is much more important for this one than others
Arch-Truss
(the chosen bridge)
-creative
-original
-lots of force distribution due to many triangles
-exciting to build
-much more complicated
-needs lots of material
-not tested
-wildcard
Pyramid
-similar to truss, which is very successful
-more complicated
-measurements are confusing

6. Planning Process
We were able to narrow down the bridges to two top designs. The basic truss and the arched truss. We decided to build a rough version of the truss, because we would need to see really positive results to create a good version.
We favoured the arched-truss, due to its creativity and originality. Thus, we would prefer to create a final copy of the arched-truss. Yet, we were still slightly indecisive, so we created a quick draft of the truss, to solidify our choice.
The next page contains the good sketch.

7. Roles of the Team Goal(s)
In the end we chose to put forth our Arched-Truss for evaluation. It was the more creative and exciting to build bridge. Plus, the prospect of uncharted territory proved too great for us to resist. Though it was a major risk, we chose it with no second thought after creating the Truss. The Arched-Truss was our own originality, and the planning was near impeccable, thus we felt it was the better of the two.
Roles of the Team
Team Member
Role(s)
Sarvenaz
Construction of 2 bridges.
Zohrah
PowerPoint and the good sketch.
Goal(s)
To discover how the construction and planning fuse together
Being time efficient
Do our best work and try to have fun

8. How Force is Distributed on Top Two
The Truss
The Arched-Truss
The popsicle sticks will be whole. Thus, being more affected by compression, tension, torsion, which will hinder its effectivity. Most of the force will be distributed on the diagonal innards.
We will mostly use halved popsicle sticks for the arched-truss. Due, to the fact that compression, tension, torsion, and shear (which are the main types of forces that occurs on bridges, are less afflicting. Is majorly triangles. A lot of the force is going to be distributed through the inner parts and the arch, so we need to be particularly careful with those.

9. Pictured below is the good copy sketch
Pictured below is the good copy sketch. Left to right, Arch-Truss and Truss. All the annotations written were made for all 4 bridges.
Though, this sketch is a more zoomed in version with different angles and specifications.

10. Creating Process Part 1. Preparing
We gathered our needed materials and we know how much was needed due to our planning and investigation. Though I did create plan for the power point.
We also counted the rough Truss part of preparing for the actual bridge.

11. We then observed the end result of the Truss and decided to not build one for final evaluation.

12. Part 2. Assembly
Now that we were definite which bridge to make, Sarvenaz started the assembly.
She was very careful with the symmetry which can be seen.

13. This is when the bridge was completed but was without paint
This is when the bridge was completed but was without paint. Up to this point everything went wonderfully. Then we noticed the width was to small, 5 cm instead of 10/11 cm. Thus, Sarvenaz took it apart, fixed it and added paint. In the next step.

14. At this point the bridge was completely finished
At this point the bridge was completely finished. This was the end product.

15. Final Evaluation Day
On the day of the final evaluation we discovered an obstacle. The bridge was bending/curving at a certain place. Which is seen clearly in the picture below.

16. Result/Weakness
We immediately predicted that to be our weak point. This might have been a result of change in temperature. Which was proven correct in the testing. Our bridge snapped in the area where curvature was most evident at 20 lbs.

17. Though the testing proved discouraging it was a learning experience that outside factors, especially affect wood the most. Thus, evidence on why wood is not very commonly used. As though we knew, though tested, some time old-fashioned, trustworthy, and proven override new, and creative. Plus, I personally discovered I enjoy planning and creating” blueprints” very much.

18. S conclusion:
“This experiment was quite interesting and challenging as it seemed to be a very easy assignment, it required a lot of detail, close attention and planning. Over all I’m very proud of our team-work, time management and not criticizing each other’s failures. If I were ever to build another popsicle bridge, I would spent more time on the planning or evaluate more before the due date or if with the same bridge, I would focus more on the middle and add more crosses.”
Pros
Cons
Discover areas of growth
Mainly an in school project
Teamwork
Limited materials
Work on creativity
Weak material (popsicles)
Learning to use new tools Ex. Glue gun
Too many half or smaller sized popsicle sticks in the design
Learning to deal with failure

19. Bibliography