This week’s STEAM At Home project is the paper bridge challenge. You can use only 1 piece of paper, (printer paper not card stock or construction paper) to build a bridge that will hold 100 pennies.

Materials:

• 1 sheet of paper
• 100 pennies (or more)
• 2 objects equal in height (books, tissue boxes, pieces of wood), that are at least 2” high

Instructions:
Set your 2 objects about 9” apart, you don’t want them too close, that would be cheating. Make a bridge that covers the expanse and start adding pennies. See how many pennies you can add before the bridge collapses.

I don’t want to give away the answer to this in the blogpost, but I was surprised that I was able to design a bridge on the first try. Something to think about is what can you do to a piece of paper to make it more sturdy? How can you incorporate pennies into this design easily? Can you improve on your design to make a bridge that will hold 200 pennies?

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