🌉 Paper bridge shapes: the whole packet

🌉 Paper bridge shapes · 2nd–7th grade · 1 day of testing · free · 50 minutes a sitting

My days, if the fair is 14 days away

Count back from your fair day and write in each date. Fewer days than this? The jobs share days, in this order; nothing is skipped.

Dates from my teacher

• My question is due
• Testing starts
• My results table and graph are due
• My board is due

In this packet

1. 🗓️ My project plan
2. 💭 My hypothesis
3. 🧺 Change, measure, keep the same
4. 🪜 My steps
5. 📊 My results
6. 📓 My logbook
7. ✅ My conclusion
8. ✂️ Board titles to cut out
9. 🏅 The judge's questions and my certificate

If I change the shape of the paper, then how many pennies it holds before it falls will ________________, because _____________________________________________

What I think will happen, in my own words:

3 levels × 3 tries at each = 9 tries in all. If anything you keep the same changes, you won't know which change made the difference.

What I need

• 📄 Paper: about 15 sheets, all the same
• 📚 Some books: 2 stacks the same height
• 🥤 Paper cups: 1 small one
• 🪙 Pennies: about 100
• 🩹 Tape
• 📏 A ruler

Be safe: 👶 Small parts

1. Make two stacks of books the same height, 20 cm apart.
2. Lay a flat sheet of paper across the gap and stand the cup in the middle.
3. Add pennies one at a time until the bridge falls in, and write down the count.
4. Do it twice more with a new flat sheet each time.
5. Fold a new sheet back and forth like a fan, and test it three times.
6. Roll sheets into tubes, tape them side by side, and test them three times.
7. Draw a bar for each shape and find the strongest.

Write each number in your results table the moment you measure it.

I changed: Bridge shape   I measured: how many pennies it holds before it falls (pennies)

MY GRAPH (a bar graph: bridge shape along the bottom, pennies up the side)

What I noticed: ______________________________________________

Write something every day you work on it, even the days you only gather things. More days? The three-page logbook prints from peabody.kids/science-fair/templates/logbook.

My hypothesis was ☐ right ☐ partly right ☐ not right.

I know because my numbers show:

What surprised me, or what might have gone wrong (7th and up):

Next time I would test:

Idea: Change a second thing: test the fan shape with one, two and three sheets stacked, and graph how the strength grows.

1. What made you want to ask this question? Say something like: I wanted to know: which paper bridge shape holds the most coins?
2. What did you think would happen, and why? Say something like: I thought changing the shape of the paper would change how many pennies it holds before it falls, and I wrote down why.
3. What did you change, and what did you measure? Say something like: I changed the shape of the paper (Flat, Folded like a fan, Rolled into tubes) and measured how many pennies it holds before it falls in pennies.
4. What did you keep the same, and why does that matter? Say something like: I kept the same size and kind of paper and the same gap between the books the same, so only the shape of the paper was different.
5. How many times did you test it? Say something like: 3 times at each of my 3 levels, and I found the middle number.
6. What did you find out? Show me in your numbers. Say something like: Look at my table: Flat and Rolled into tubes gave different numbers, and here's the pattern.
7. Was your hypothesis right? How do you know? Say something like: My numbers show whether I was right, partly right or not, and I can show you where.
8. Did anything go wrong, or surprise you? Say something like: One try was odd, so I did it again and wrote it in my logbook.
9. If you did it again, what would you change or test next? Say something like: I'd change a second thing: test the fan shape with one, two and three sheets stacked, and graph how the strength grows.