Missouri Wing Squadron STEM Exercise

Cadets of Missouri Wing's Central Missouri Composite Squadron recently learned about bridge design and construction methods as part of the Civil Air Patrol STEM program.

In Part 1, four teams of two cadets were tasked to design their own bridge using specific standards and their ingenuity to see how well their paper designs would hold up to actual construction. Some designs were simple to build while others proved a bit more difficult to execute once paper concept moved to balsa wood construction.

In Part 2 on a subsequent meeting night, they tested their concepts by spanning each bridge across a gap and adding weight to the center of the bridge until they snap. Whose bridge will hold the most weight?