Roof Truss Variables

The question of this experiment was which of the four chosen roof trusses- a kings post, queens post, fink, or gable truss- would be the strongest. I tested this by building each truss out of dowel rods, and using string to place a bucket directly under the truss. I then filled in with water to the trusses breaking point. The independent variable of this project was which truss was being tested and the dependent variable was how much weight the bridge held. Each truss was built using hot glue and ¼ inch dowel rods.
My hypothesis was that the fink truss would hold the most weight because it had two smaller inside support pieces supporting the outward force and two longer inside pieces supporting a downward force. The data recovered from the experiment proved that my hypothesis was incorrect, and that the queens post truss was the strongest.
According to the data, the queens post was the strongest with an average held weight of over 8618.248 grams, seeing as that was the most weight our testing apparatus could hold. The fink truss was the second strongest, being able to hold over 5896.696 grams. The average weight is so low because this truss was the first truss tested, and was …show more content…
Perhaps one of the most obvious uncontrollable variables was how structurally sound each truss was. None of the trusses were identical, despite using exact measurements. The amount of glue used for each joint was different, making one truss stronger than another truss of the same kind. Also, the first few trials were spent creating the best way to test the rest of the trusses, leading to the fink trusses failure of a first trial. In the future, I should have prepared a testing truss or two, to make sure that the testing procedure was perfect, before going into the actual experiment. Third, the trusses were all much stronger than expected, in the future there must be a backup plan so that there could have been more exact

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