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I need help with a project

Discussion in 'All other topics' started by Milad12, Jun 3, 2007.

  1. Milad12

    Milad12 Member

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    Ok I have to build this structure only using toothpicks, paper and glue. It has to be hard enough to stop an egg from breaking , by dropping a cinder block on it. Do you guys have any ides?
     
  2. Indochine

    Indochine Regular member

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    stop thinking "hard", start thinking "strong". Look at pictures of scaffolding and girder bridges.

     
  3. dizzyduck

    dizzyduck Regular member

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    Gonna throw my two cents in. Paper can be a very strong absorbant of energy/force depending on how its utlized. I did a project similar to this is high school. Basically you want to make sure your structure is not very wide. You want to make it compact. Making something wide can cause the inner portion of the structure to become weak and fold under pressure. Does it say what kind of paper you can use? If not, sandpaper is a wise choice. I used regular paper for mine and what I did is crumple up the paper longways and made a double "safety net." The top part of my structure consisted of the first safety net consisting of about 8 pieces of length-wise crumpled copy paper, making it about 10" wide. Shortly beneath that was another safety net of 8 pieces of paper which covered my egg. We used a 9 pound bowling ball and when it dropped it broke the side of my structure and bounced off to the side, leaving my egg intact. However, we used popsicle sticks so your structure will be somewhat different. Hope this helps!
     
  4. dizzyduck

    dizzyduck Regular member

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    Gonna throw my two cents in. Paper can be a very strong absorbant of energy/force depending on how its utlized. I did a project similar to this is high school. Basically you want to make sure your structure is not very wide. You want to make it compact. Making something wide can cause the inner portion of the structure to become weak and fold under pressure. Does it say what kind of paper you can use? If not, sandpaper is a wise choice. I used regular paper for mine and what I did is crumple up the paper longways and made a double "safety net." The top part of my structure consisted of the first safety net consisting of about 8 pieces of length-wise crumpled copy paper, making it about 10" wide. Shortly beneath that was another safety net of 8 pieces of paper which covered my egg. We used a 9 pound bowling ball and when it dropped it broke the side of my structure and bounced off to the side, leaving my egg intact. However, we used popsicle sticks so your structure will be somewhat different. Hope this helps!
     
  5. Indochine

    Indochine Regular member

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    I don't know about elsewhere, but many cheap interior doors in houses in England are made of a sandwich consisting of two outer layers of thin plywood and an thin outer frame, and the middle is made of... paper. Turned to papier-maché and pressed into a honeycomb structure. A bit like the trays of the same material that... guess what... eggs are packed into! It is very strong. I once saw a drunk Canadian ice hockey player, a big guy, try to punch his way through one. Result: Door 1, Canook 0. He went to hospital with a broken wrist.
     

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