Spaghetti is a very weak material, but this was proved wrong, when five students managed to make an extremely strong and sturdy bridge entirely out of spaghetti.

Everyone eats. But not many people think about what they can do with food. Certain foods can be very strong building materials. Mr. Thorlakson assigned five students (including me) to build a bridge. We were told to build the bridge entirely made of spaghetti. We were given a budget of $10 to buy the materials.

We bought cheap spaghetti. We bought two types of spaghetti: spaghettini and fettuccine. It was bought from the well-known brand No Name. We also bought a hot glue gun, many glue sticks, paint, and hot glue guns.

There are many structures in the world, the most common ones being the shell, mass, frame, solid, and liquid structures. The structure was obviously a manmade structure. The structure type we chose to build was a mass structure because separate parts were piled and glued onto each other.

Mass structure is a structure, natural or manufactured, that is made by piling up of materials. Examples of mass structures include pyramids, igloos, and beaver dams.

We chose a type of truss design for the foundation and the two side supports of the bridge. The truss design we chose consisted of lots of cross braces (triangles).

In construction, cross bracing is a framework used to strengthen building structures in which corner to corner bolsters converge. Cross bracing can expand a structure's ability to withstand seismic movement. Supporting is significant in quake safe structures since it helps keep a structure standing.

Cross Bracing Definition: Bracing consisting of two diagonal members which intersect or cross each other

To make the bridge, we drew a layout of the bridge, each line segment being 7.2 centimeters. Prior to drawing the layout of the bridge, we snapped handfuls of spaghetti sticks to the length of 7.2 centimeters. We then wrapped ten pieces of spaghetti together (with elastic bands) to make one linesegment of one square of the bridges base. The squares that were made were then attached together to make one strong base. For the walls, the same procedure was repeated, but using fettuccine, and gluing only two pieces of fettuccine together to form one line segment. The bridge was painted after all the gluing was completed.

Even though many things went the right way during the time we built the bridge, lots of things went the wrong way. The main problem for us was the material itself. Spaghetti was simply too weak. If there was one snap in an area, we would have to redo the whole part. The other problem to acknowledge was the fact that the large sum of hot glue resulted in a large dead load. The large sum of hot glue gave the spaghetti more weight to hold up. The spaghetti snapped on countless occasions due to the large dead load.

Interesting facts

As spaghetti is known to be a very weak material, us five students proved that it could indeed be a very strong building material if used correctly. The bridge we made was successful and was strong (relevant to the weight and length of the bridge).

In the future, if the same task is assigned to us, we would make the bridge longer, increase the width, and use more spaghetti, in the hope that the structural efficiency of the bridge would be a larger result than just 3 kg.

Food can be very strong if used properly!

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