Amazing Pasta Testing Results.
Raw Barilla Fettuccini Pasta is Surprisingly Strong
By Richard Williams; 5/19/2008
This latest article report would be the sort of thing that would make a lot of money here in Las Vegas, if it were used to bet upon the test results, by the legal gambling institutions here. I know I would have lost money if I had bet on how much a strut of Fettuccini Pasta with dimensions of 3/16” inch wide (4.7625mm), by .06 of an inch thick (1.5240mm), by 8” long (20.32cm) would support in stress weight tests. It is even more surprisingly so when made into an I-Beam shape like those used in buildings we see going up around the world. Remember, this is the same pasta that you cook and eat. Right out of the box it measures 10” inches long but I trimmed it back to eight inches to get better sections with straight ends that I cut myself. I performed these tests over the last week and I think you will be tremendously surprised about the data that I was able to gather and provide to you. Truly some tests had amazing results. My data is also not the definitive answer here for the results of all brands of pasta, just the Barilla Fettuccini type. I am also including another PDF report that was done in three different universities in South America. They used a round pasta and Fettuccini is a slightly oval configuration. I was able to make I-Beams out of Fettuccini Pasta to build my bridge but I don’t think it would be possible to do it with the round type. I’m also going to list once again those pasta bridge building web sites for you. Do enjoy the data and descriptive procedure with pictures and do please consider this much less expensive material than the balsa woods that many of you teachers out there use. In truth that is why I did this project to begin with, to give you a much cheaper alternative. This would not be suggested for the lower grade levels but could be incorporated in 7th grades on up to college grades. It also would not have to be this elaborate either. Enjoy. (copy and paste links if they do not link up to web site automatically)
https://civil.camosun.bc.ca/spaghetti_bridge/2008Pics/content/Skills_Canada_2008_SB_032_large.html
https://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=4070
https://civil.camosun.bc.ca/spaghetti_bridge/Index.htm
https://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=4070
https://www.physics.uwo.ca/science_olympics/events/grades_11_to_12/london_bridge.html
https://www.ppgec.ufrgs.br/segovia/espaguete/software.html
https://bridgecontest.usma.edu/manual.htm
and my own test results