Citizen Printer

how can i design a freeway barrier that will absorb and impact and prevent a payload in a truck moving 3/4"?

with 6 sheets of printer paper, 6 craft sticks, 6 paper clips, 6 rubber bands, and 12" of masking tape

Public Comments

1. I'd steal the current designs that try to spread out the impact time to minimze decel forces Take the paper and cut it so that its now as tall as the truck and roll them into loose rolls. Secure the rolls with the paperclips to keep them from unrolling. Use some of the rubber bands to secure them into a bundle, could also use the tape. The truck will now hit the big bundle and have to crush all the tubes in their weak direction (like a real barrier), slowly slowing the truck I might also think about doing a "catching design". Using the sheets of printer paper as the "mit" and attaching rubber bands to each side of the paper. Keep the paper upright using the sticks and tape and anchor the rubber bands to something that won't move on one end, the paper on the other. I'd set up multiple layers of these, not making them tight at all. The truck would then get caught in sucessive mits and stretch the rubber bands, storing its kinetic energy. Its kind of like reverse sligshot combined with aircraft carrier cable catching scheme when they land