The Strength of Shapes!

The Challenge: Support a person 2cm off the ground using only the following…

· A board (or a kitchen tray) about 30 x 30cm in size, and;

· 2 sheets of A4 paper

The solution:

1) Mark the paper into 2cm wide strips.

2) Cut the paper along the markings. The cuts need to be straight!

3) Roll the strips up into cylinder shapes, so that each cylinder is about 1cm in diameter. You’ll need a minimum of 9 cylinders.

HINT: If the cylinders unroll, use a tiny piece of sticky tape to hold them closed.

4) Lay the cylinders upright on a flat surface. Make sure they are evenly spaced!

5) Put the tray on top of the cylinders.

Then…

6) Put the budding physicist (avec “le équipement de sécurité”) on top of the tray! It should be strong enough to hold them!!

7) If you don’t have a big enough tray or board, you could use a book as a base and see how much weight/other books the cylinders can hold!!

8) Try other shapes to see how they compare!

NOTE: For reasons of safety, don’t go higher than 2cm!

The physics behind it all:

Cylinders are one of the strongest geometrical shapes — regardless of the material they’re made from. They are immensely strong, particularly in situations like this when a force is applied across their length (in this case a compressive force).