Directions to Make a Pasta Bridge

Choose a bridge design. You don't have to find actual schematics, but you will need to know roughly how long and how wide the bridge will be, since this impacts the amount of pasta you will need.

Purchase the pasta. The type of pasta you use makes an impact on the bridge. Round pasta like spaghetti can carry more weight than flat pasta like vermicelli. Long pastas can be broken to a smaller size, but building a long bridge with short pasta will take a considerable amount of gluing. It takes roughly 2 lbs. of long pasta to make a bridge 3 feet long.

Set up your glue gun or pot. Use a hot glue gun or pot to eliminate long drying times. You can use other glues or epoxy, but these require time to set, and you can ruin the pasta structure simply by nudging it before it is dry.

Create a flat surface to act as a road or footpath over the bridge. This is the base of the bridge. For a thin bridge, glue a bundle of spaghetti together at the ends. For a wide bridge, glue the pasta side-by-side, also at the ends. Leave the middle of the pasta unglued. This allows the pasta to bend separately. Pasta that is glued together down its entire length cannot bend, and will snap under less weight than unglued pasta.

Build the sides of the bridge. For a straight bridge, create a shape that resembles two triangles attached at a flat side to make a square. Glue the pasta in a square shape. Add a diagonal piece from one corner to the opposite side. Make several of these, and glue them together at the corners. Alternate the diagonals; if one square has a diagonal that runs upwards from left to right, the adjacent square runs downward from left to right. These alternating diagonals create triangles and give the bridge strength. Create two rows of these shapes for a wide bridge and glue them to the long sides of the bottom piece. A thin bridge will need only one row.

Create a top for the bridge. Duplicate the bottom and glue it on top of the sides.

Test the pasta bridge. Finish gluing the bridge together and let it dry, or cool down for hot glue, before putting any weight on it. Add weights slowly and see how much the bridge can stand before breaking. Record the amount. You can try other pasta types or bridge designs to find out which is the strongest.