Jamie Kelly

A Block

This past school year we did a lot of projects to learn the fields of engineering. One of my favorite projects was the observational deck. The idea of the project was to build a deck to hold weights until it broke. We were given 50 popsicle sticks. The groups could either go for longest deck or how much weight it could hold. I chose how much weight the deck could hold. My design was simple instead of doing a single popsicle stick for support I lined up two sideways to give great support. I also built from the back forward. I tried to create some weight in the back to keep the deck from falling forward. However the back did nothing to give weight because the weight of the weight was far more heavier than all the popsicle sticks. For the deck part I made a basket type where there was a big square opening to hold the weight. To support the over the table deck I used a L shape support with again double popsicle sticks for greater strength. I tried a little to put length in my deck to gain some points. I just put popsicles in the shape of a cone with a pointy end. All the sticks were held together by glue from a glue gun. My deck was the best one in the class holding the most weight but there is stuff that I wish I would have done more support in the front and not waste so much of the sticks in the back. What I learned from this project is that the double popsicle sticks gave great support and that time and limit amount of supplies really does hold a restriction on what you can do. The only thing I would say about this project is that let people have more popsicle sticks.