 After investigating "real" bridges we moved onto looking at different shaped structures.  We experimented with spaghetti and marhmallows...  ..creating two triangular prisms with the spaghettis using marshmallows to hold the pieces.  The two prisms had another piece of spaghetti between them from which hung a paper basket into which we put as many pennies as we could.  We were proud of ours; however not eating the marshmallows was an even bigger challenge.The spaghetti bridge carried 16 peniies...  ...until it collapsed.We then compared the strength of the spaghetti which has a circular core to that of linguini which has a flatted one.  Not surprisingly spaghetti could carry the greatest load as circles are among the strongest shapes in nature.
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