♪ ♪ Hi, I'm Deysi from Design Squad Global.

And I'm challenging you to build a bridge that can hold the weight.

The bridge needs to be made... out of toothpicks.

Here are some tips for you to think about when you're building your toothpick bridge.

Toothpicks are a weak material.

It's not hard to break a toothpick in half.

But there are things you can do to make them stronger.

For example, several toothpicks grouped together are much harder to break than a single toothpick.

(groaning, laughing) Toothpicks are also strong under compression.

That means that they can hold weight when you push down on them.

See?

I'm pressing from the top and the bottom.

Another way to build strong structures made out of weak materials like toothpicks is using strong shapes like triangles.

You may have heard that triangles are strong.

That's because it's hard to make a triangle lose its shape.

Take a look at this pyramid.

The sides are pretty sturdy and don't shift much when I push down on top of the structure.

It maintains its shape.

But see what happens when I push down on this cube.

It doesn't take much pressure to make the sides of the cube bend.

So I'd suggest that you incorporate triangles into your toothpick design.

To build your bridge, you can use any type of fastener you want: clay, foam, or craft glue.

Don't use super glue because it dries too quickly.

And most important of all, be patient.

Let your glue dry.

You may want to build separate components first, let them dry, and then glue the components together.

You see all the triangles?

I built these first, glued them, let them dry, and then put the rest of the components together.

I also kept a close eye on my connections.

These are the places on your bridge that are more likely to fail.

So make sure that your corners are nice and tight, and your toothpicks line up.

This style of bridge is called a truss.

Trusses use the power of triangles to hold weight.

Look at all these triangles in my design.

You could probably find some truss bridges where you live.

Let's put these triangles to the test and see how strong my toothpick bridge is.

I'm going to see how many books my bridge can hold.

And slide.

I think that my bridge will collapse on its side because there's no triangle support going down the middle.

As you can see, it's only squares.

So let's test it out.

Okay, that's one.

Two.

Three.

It's bending a little bit.

Four.

And... it collapsed.

(laughing) See, it collapsed this way, just like I thought.

But it's amazing because my bridge held five books.

Before you start building, make sure you have a game plan, sketch out your idea, and follow your sketch.

Then gather your materials and make sure you have enough to accomplish your building goals.

What kind of design are you going with?

How much weight does your bridge hold?

How wide is your bridge?

We want to know.

Tell us about your toothpick bridge on the Design Squad Global website.