"Building A Bridge"

       A bridge is being done in math class for a final project that 8th graders are doing. The 8th graders are working in a group(4-5 students per group) and as a group, students need to work together in order to make the bridge strong, able to hold a lot of weight and us the group, have all of the requirements to achieve a good grade. My group consists of 5 students, Jacqueline N. , Kimberly F. , Michael N. , Caylen N. , and myself. The materials that we were allowed to have were:

                    1. Toothpicks ($1,500 each)

                    2. Spaghetti ($3,000 each)

                    3. Popsicle Sticks ($7,500 each)

                    4. Hot Glue Gun ($200,000 endless but must bring your own)

                    5. Tape ($750,000 endless)

                    6. Elmer's Glue ($60,000 endless)

                    7. String Yarn ($5,000 per foot)

                    8. Pipe Cleaner ($10,000 each)

For these things, you had the option of what to buy but only having the budget of $1.5 million dollars (per group). You needed to use ALL of the money without going over in order to get an +A. The requirements for this bridge were to:

                                      1) The Bridge needs to be strong

                                      2) Being able to carry weight

                                      3) Needs to be 30'' long and 4'' wide

The materials that we used were only the Popsicle Sticks and the Hot Glue Gun so we would have more Popsicle sticks to build with. There was an equation that the group came up so we would know exactly how much popsicle sticks to buy. The equation reads 

                                      7,500p+200,000=1,500,000

  p=posicle sticks being multiplied by 7,500.

        If we were to solve this, first, we would subtract 200,000 by 1.5 million and then we would divide that number by 7,500p in order to know how many Popsicle sticks to buy. The girls (Jackie, Kimberly, and myself) worked on building the bottom of the bridge and the top while the boys (Caylen and Michael) worked on building the sides.  We are building the bridge shaped as a long rectangle where on the sides, it is shaped like W's. On the top, it has double sticks shaped as an X while it also has a cross on top of it.