a)    Buy several pieces of thin balsa wood.
b)    Hot glue three wood pieces in the shape of a triangle, 15 cm long on each side
c)    Hold the part of the truss you are gluing for 60 seconds so it will set.
d)    Make sure each truss is the same size.
e)    Repeat steps b-d eight times so you have a total of nine trusses.
f)    Start building the main vertical struts that are going to be inside in every truss design.
g)    To make it easier, angle the cuts on the struts so they into place better.
h)    Hot glue the struts inside the trusses from apex down to center of the bottom member.
i)    Build all nine trusses to have this center post.
j)    Set three of these trusses aside and label “King-post”
k)    Take three of the basic trusses and add additional struts to make Queen-post trusses.  They need mini-struts hot glued going from the bottom of the center post out to the center point of the side members.  Set aside and label as “Queen-post”.
l)    Take three of the basic trusses and add additional struts to make Graf-post trusses.  They need mini-struts hot glued going from the bottom corners of the truss to the center point of the center post. Set aside and label as “Graf-post”.
m)    Create a notched wooden block for applying force to the apex of the truss. The notch in the wood exactly the angle of the apex on the truss.

a)    You should have a Vernier force plate and a computer to do this experiment.
b)    Set up the computer so it can read the force recorded from the force plate using Logger Pro interface box.
c)    The computer has to have a Logger Pro 3.1 software, so it can read the force recorded from the force plate.
d)    Make sure the force plate is connected during the experiment when measuring the force of each truss design before failure.
e)    Calibrate the force plate to read zero when no force is applied.

a)    Apply force straight down on the truss so the force plate can read the force and send the information to the computer.
b)    Apply force by using the notched wooden block.
c)    Put the bottom of the truss on the force plate and put the notch on the top angle of the truss.
d)    Start the data collection of the computer.
e)    Start applying steady force with your hand.
f)    You need to keep adding more and more force until the truss finally breaks.
g)    Once the truss actually breaks, then go over to the computer and record the highest force just before failure.
h)    Do the same thing for trial 2 and 3 by repeating steps 3a-3f.

a)    To test truss type 2 repeat steps 2-3.
b)    Be sure to conduct 3 trials

a)    To test truss 3, repeat steps 2-3.
b)    Do the same thing for all three trials.
c)    For each truss find the average of force from the three trials.
d)     Use the average results to compare the truss designs.