DAISY AMES

For our Structures course, we made bridges out of spaghetti that had to bear the load of applied pressure (reels of paper) spanning 24”. We tested the strength and evaluated the different kinds of structural deficiencies. They had to be made out of strictly spaghetti and white glue only - no super-glue or string. Some bridges sheared at the joints, and some, like ours, were more ductile and slowly bowed out. The total weight of our bridge was 5oz and held up a whopping 11 pounds, yes, pounds of paper. It’s unclear if our choice of whole wheat spaghetti made a difference because it does not have the consistency that white spaghetti has throughout. The winning bridge weighed 7.5oz and held 15.5lbs - rearing a relative strength at 45% whereas ours was a 37% strength. It was tedious to build relative to more exciting studio work, but really fun!