How it works
What happens between your contest's rulebook and a bridge you can build, in four parts.
1. The rulebook becomes checks
Each contest's rulebook is read line by line and written down as data: the supports and the gap, the size limits, the space the bridge must leave clear, the load and where it sits, the mass limit, and which sticks, glues and joints are allowed.
Every rule keeps the rulebook's own words next to it. Where a rule can be read two ways we record both and use the one the organizer most likely meant; where that is the looser one, the contest page says to ask your organizer.
2. Designs that follow every rule
A design is a truss shape plus the stick size of every member and how each joint is made. A generator proposes designs, and each one is then nudged the smallest possible amount until it meets every rule exactly.
A separate checker then measures the result again on true-size sticks, the way a judge with a ruler would, before it counts as legal.
3. Loaded until it breaks
A 3D model of the sticks and glued joints is loaded the way your contest loads it, step by step. Sticks crush or buckle, glue lines shear or peel, butt joints split on end grain, until the bridge can't carry any more.
This tells you how much a design should hold and where it will fail first. It is a simulation: it hasn't yet been checked against real bridges breaking, so treat the numbers as estimates.
4. Joints you can cut by hand
Every joint is a through-cut you can make with a hobby knife: square or angled ends, glued between two sticks or butted against one. No notches and no half-laps.
At each joint one stick runs through and the others are cut against it, so the build pack (coming soon) can tell you exactly which piece to cut, how long, and in what order to glue.
Use it the fair way
Some contests limit how much outside help, including AI tools, a student may use on the design. Others ask you to explain how you designed your bridge. Each contest page says what its rules allow, with the rulebook's own words and a link to it.
Where a contest bans AI help, we show no ready-made designs, only checking and learning. Where it limits help to guidance, our designs are worked examples. Either way: ask your teacher or the organizer if you're not sure, say where your design came from if you're asked, and build the bridge yourself.
Look under the hood
The research views behind the app. They run the full analysis live, so they can take a few seconds.