have you ever done a science experiment and wondered what did it be like if you did it big I have [Music] yeah my name is Phil and I take your everyday science experiments and do them big this is science Max experiments at large science facts taking something flimsy and making something strong we build things out of pasta sand and paper to show how you can use science to make something strong out of something weak dry sand wet sand science sand it's all how you build it [Music] experiments at Large [Music] oh high science maximites have you ever been eating pasta and wondered what could I build with this could I build something that could hold an impressive amount of weight well I have and that's what we're gonna do today on science Max experiments at large but we're not going to use cook pasta because it's too delicious we're going to use uncooked pasta Which is less delicious but it's great for building we're gonna make a pasta Bridge here's how you do it first you want to start with a plan and then you want to take your pasta I'm saying pasta but of course spaghetti is usually the best thing to use and lay it out on your plan the reason you have a plan is so that you can make sure all of the spaghetti is exactly the right length lay it out on your plan perfectly aligned like that there and now it's time to glue it all together now you can use white glue but it takes a long time so I suggest a hot glue gun but make sure you get an adult's permission before you use one of these okay so you take your plan you lay it out you glue it up don't glue it on the paper because that will be bad and you will end up with your truss and it looks just like this now remember you want two sides because those are the sides of your bridge and as you can see I've used several strands of pasta because that'll make it a little bit stronger once you have your trusses it's time for the next part of the plan this is the roadway and it works the same way lay out your pasta glue it up and Bam there it is now you put your trusses on your roadway and you glue them all together and you also want to put some struts along the top here probably to keep it nice and rigid in the end you will end up with a fantastic looking pasta Bridge pretty good huh no pasta Bridge no other Bridge could claim to be 100 pasta minus the glue 99.8 pasta 0.2 glue I say that Captain set sail set sailed for the land of fossil Bridges now if that was pretty fast for you don't worry all the instructions are going to be on our website now a bridge is in a bridge unless it spans a gap because that's what bridges are for so you put your pasta Bridge up there across the books like that and then you can see just how much weight the bridge holds it's pretty impressive if you build it right even something is flimsy and as delicate as pasta can hold quite a bit of weight I like to use big heavy blocks and put them in the Middle where there is no support from the books whatsoever and just keep adding heavy things and see how much weight the bridge will hold before it breaks how much will it hold well I'm not gonna tell you that's where you get to be science maximites and find out for yourselves and now we're gonna Max it out today on oh my pasta today on science Max experiments at large we're going to be looking at how fragile things can become strong if you build them right um we're also going to be maxing out the pasta Bridge experiment to see if we can make one that's strong enough to hold me you think we can do it I know I have no idea but I'm going to the Center for skills and development and training to find out foreign Phil how you doing great thanks awesome this is Kyle he's got a masters in civil engineering uh did you want some pasta I'm good I can go back and get some more really I'm good okay so what does a Civil Engineer do well a civil engineer builds the world around us talking about our homes keeping us warm in the winter our roads hey even our Bridges bridges that's fantastic because that's what I need your help with I want to max out the pasta Bridge awesome I want to make one big enough that I can walk across it okay that's never been done before I know right you think we can do it we're going to need a lot of help to do that yeah we don't need help all we need is a lot of pasta which I have nice what do you say yeah let's give it a shot okay we'll give it a shot why don't we just take some to start and then oh in order to max out our pasta Bridge the idea is to take many many strands of pasta and just keep gluing them together so the long beams of pasta in our giant bridge is nothing but many many regular sized brands of pesto here's where we were after 20 minutes of gluing there that's nice yeah I I think this piece is done okay so how does it work is it is it strong well let's give it a go eh yeah I think this will hold great so we just need to build a few more of these then right yeah that's right how many more 112 more 212 of these more 212 that's but it took us like 20 minutes to make this one yeah oh well I guess so I mean this is science Max experiments at large that's what we do we just keep building and building and you know I don't have any plans for the next while so uh Phil yeah I think that there's a better way of doing this I would be delighted to know there's a better way you'll be faster than this much faster sure let's do it awesome I'm just gonna put the pasta back in the bag because it it'll show you fail you don't have to do that no no but it'll get stale Phil I'm gonna call in one of my friends we're probably gonna need some more help with this oh man that's a great I sorry that's a great idea because it's it's it there's yeah because at least we can get your friend to help clean up better sand castles in 80 Seconds building sand castles is fun but you can't use dry sand because it doesn't stay up very well you have to use wet sand but even if you use wet sand it doesn't hold a lot of weight but if you use sand with the power of science it does hold the weight dry sand wet sand science sand here's what's going on say these ping pong balls are grains of sand when they're dry they don't hold together very well that's why you can't build a sand castle out of dry sand but if you get the sand wet a little bit the grains of sand will hold together a little better because of the surface tension of the water that's why it's easier to build a sand castle with wet sand but they still won't hold much weight but if you add something that creates even more friction between the grains of sand like say this sandpaper it will hold the weight so here's what you do take Windows screen and cut it into circles make sure you get an adult's permission first okay deal put in a layer of sand pack it down and put in a circle of window screen and a layer of sand pack it down circle of window screen then you guessed it layers and pack it down circle of window screen the window screens are going to add more friction between the grains of sand and will make your sand castle strong strong with the power of Science and then you can put lots of weight on it and there you go sand with the power of science [Music] okay I had to Max it out let's see how strong science and really is [Music] our pastor Bridge was going to take a long time to build out of individual pieces so we have a new plan hey Michaela hey Phil how you doing I'm great how are you good this is Michaela she's an undergrad in industrial engineering right I am and you and Kyle have a new plan for how we can build our pasta Bridge that's not going to look like this and this is the best that Kyle and I could do with 20 minutes okay well I have better good I'm glad how are we gonna do it so instead of that we're gonna try something like this oh okay this is sort of like a giant burrito kind of thing right yep but we're going to build the bridge out of this exactly uh we're gonna make it longer though yep we're gonna make it eight feet long we have this long Pole right yep and we have sheets of this pasta we're gonna put them on the diagonal okay are we gonna roll it but we're gonna start from this corner and we're going to keep rolling and don't forget to add water now we gotta Add Water I'll add the water okay adding water just like this yep helps the pasta stick together as we're rolling we're rolling we're rolling we're gonna keep doing this with a bunch more sheets so that it gets really really long like eight feet long and when we're finally done rolling we gotta spray it with some varnish yep and so it all holds together great and then it's going to be about this thick yeah when we're finished with it exactly this is going to be one of the parts of the deck of our Bridge great so each one of these large pieces is going to be like one single strand of pasta and the little Bridge with it yeah we need a lot of these oh a lot still it's a lot faster than doing it piece by piece with just every time I hold it up you make that noise oh oh awesome [Laughter] the shape of something makes a big difference in how strong it is get some toilet paper rolls and put them in a square and then stack books on top of them they can hold wait thing is it can actually hold a lot more weight than you probably think in fact the amount of weight just paper in a tube can hold is really kind of impressive and now let's Max it out Bill's weight on two toilet paper rolls nope Bill's weight on four toilet paper rolls nope Bill's weight on six toilet paper rolls nope Bill's weight on 10. toilet paper rolls cool Bill's way can be supported by 10 toilet paper rolls but what if filled jumps didn't really work so Kyle and Michaela's plan is to use a long pole and sheets of uncooked pasta we roll the pasta around the pole and spray it with a little varnish We Roll sheets and sheets of pasta along an eight foot long pole making many layers of pasta then we wait for it to dry and remove the pull what we have is an eight foot Long Hollow tube of pasta that becomes a single piece of the bridge then we attach a bunch of these pieces together and use more sheets of pasta to glue them into the shape we used for our small pasta Bridge we're making our giant pasta bridge by wrapping sheets of pasta around and around the poles using the technique we just had making a whole large pole out of many many many sheets of pasta rolled around each other and we've made a giant truss look at this this is great guys it's looking pretty good yeah if I hit it you think it'd stay together what this is pasta not steel it's only made to just hold you Kyle what do you think are the chances that this is gonna hold me when we build it something like 50 50. not bad Michaela what do you think I'm gonna hold for the best hoping for the best that's exactly the kind of gray area we like to work in at science Max experiments at large experiments at large I don't know if anybody's even ever done this before not to my knowledge I don't think so which is why we have no idea if it's going to work okay so uh one more of these because these are the sides roadway and then the top yep yep all right let's do it while we're waiting it's a good moment to point out one of the things that makes our Bridge really strong that is triangles as you can see the truss or the side of our bridge is really just three big triangles triangles are very strong shapes to build with and they work great in bridges now it's time for cyan so simple a caveman could do it this is a cave map today we are going to teach this caveman how to build a strong structure here are awesome boxes huh go on and build a shelter and I'll come back and see how it worked out yeah no no no that's not right ah you need to build walls by stacking boxes on top of each other that's how you build understand oh yes I'll come back later and see how it worked out thank you oh does that look right to you yeah look at those boxes they're stacked on top of each other but if they are in tall Stacks what would happen if you push on the wall you see walls don't stay up if you build like that let's try again I'll help you this time first lay out the foundation ah where your wall should go God now let's make the second level [Music] no no don't put it right on top you'll need to stack in between that's how you make a strong wall okay I'll come back later yeah nice work ah why don't you give it a try ah [Music] looks strong but you forgot a box oh join us next time when we talk about how to make a door [Music] building a door in a wall is hard because how do you make a big gaping hole in your wall without your wall ing over well people have come up with lots of ways to put doors and windows in walls made of stone blocks over the centuries and you can do this at home with books like I'm doing or with building blocks just go up until you're happy with the height and then stack each next layer a little closer to the middle until the final layer touches just like this and then you take a big heavy buck and you drop it right on top and it's pretty stable and you've just made a doorway it works even better if it's part of a wall because you want extra weight on the outside of these books here so of course I had to build one that was part of a whole wall this is the same corbled Arch built out of little building blocks and as you can see I went closer and closer together until it meets at the top and it is very strong now let's Max it out the kind of arch we're building is a corbled arch and the science Max build team and I are using pieces of wood cut to different lengths how high can it go we can use my head to no okay wait wait it takes a while to get together but once it's done it looks just like the kinds of doorways Stone buildings had in ancient times but there you go it maxed out cardboard Arch we went straight up until we got to these layers and they got a little bit closer and closer to the middle and to the last piece is one big solid piece and if we built this right it should be strong enough to hold me up science well it held me up for a minute didn't it [Music] we rolled our pasta and constructed one Truss now we've made a lot of morals of pasta and connected them all together to make a second truss and a roadway as well as the cross braces on top and when we get it all together we end up with whoa pasta Bridge oh we did it we built it we have no idea how long it will stay up but it's up it's doing its Bridge thing for now anyway I am very excited because as far as we know I'm the only one to try to cross a bridge made out of pasta what do you guys think I think I don't want you to be the last person to cross the past the bridge you're absolutely right but I'm gonna do it I think I think we're ready yeah yeah okay here we go [Music] oh no that doesn't bode well for our pasta Bridge what what happened here Kyle you put all your weight in the middle of the joist it snapped uh-huh if only there was a way to distribute your weight maybe if you crawled do like the military style kind of oh right so that I'm putting my weight on more than one spot yeah exactly oh wait a minute that gives me an idea you guys stay right there I have I I know what to do I know what to do I know what to do you're coming back right foreign distribute your weight over a large area so you don't sink in the snow that's what skis do which is perfect for the pasta Bridge come on okay okay come on is it working it's working I hear some cracking this might do it uh-huh gotta try to spread your legs apart spreading my legs apart distribute your way Distributing my weight it's swaying a lot oh man high fives there you go science Max experiments at large pasta Bridge skis what more could you want maybe a pasta chair lift of some sort [Music] s wear it it is the fashion accessory of the year I want to travel down here should have made it bigger than that friends science then science how long do I hold this piece for a long time guys guys this isn't funny anymore guys