Los Altos High School · Senior Science · 7th Period
My partner Duncan Koblas and I set a class record with our popsicle stick bridge, holding 135 kg before it finally gave way — nearly four times what most teams managed that day.
We didn't get there by accident. Before a single stick was glued, we put serious time into a bridge simulator app, modeling different truss configurations and hunting for weak points in our design. Every failure in simulation was a failure we didn't have to make in real life. We prototyped, stress-tested, revised, and stress-tested again until the structure felt tight.
The arch truss design you see in the photo was the result of that iteration — carefully angled diagonals to distribute load, reinforced joints at the highest-stress nodes, and a span geometry tuned to handle center loading. When competition day came, we just executed.
I took a photo of the leaderboard before 7th period was over. I couldn't help it.
7th period standings. Duncan + Nathan: 135 kg — a record at the time.
