Bridge the Gap
Build a truss that carries the load across, and read every member's tension or compression in the statics that condemned or spared it.
5
levels5–20 min
a run, player-paced570
materialNo timer
player-paced, always
Bridge the Gap
Build a truss that carries the load across, and read every member's tension or compression in the statics that condemned or spared it.
A gap, anchors, a stockyard of steel and aluminium tube, a mass budget, and a load that will stand on — or cross — what you build. Join sites with members, then commit: the truss is solved joint by joint, every member is judged against yield and Euler buckling, and anything past its limit is named with the force that broke it. A square folds; a triangle does not.
Levels
5 levelsThe tag on each level says how it gets harder. Levels gate on ideas, not on each other — jump wherever it gets interesting.
What decides the outcome
The game never restates the science — it imports it. These are the model layers that do the deciding.
The truss solver — joint equilibrium closed by Hooke's law, the mechanism probe, one joint's free-body diagram, Euler buckling and yield limits (truss); each material's modulus, yield strength and density and the hollow tube's second moment of area (elasticity); g (constants). The game states no law of statics of its own.
Why it teaches
The author's own delete-the-science argument: remove this game's substrate and there is nothing left to choose.
Every member is a decision the statics judges: where it goes decides whether the frame is a structure or a mechanism, and whether it is pulled or pushed; its length and section decide whether a push buckles it. Without the substrate every arrangement of sticks is as good as every other; with it, the unbraced square folds, the long light strut buckles at Euler's load, and a crossing load turns a tie into a strut.
Accessibility
The contract's declarations, stated before you commit to a run.
Keyboard
Playable start to finish from the keyboard.
Screen reader
Partial screen-reader support; see the game's notes.
Motion
Reduced-motion: consequences render statically.
Audio
Silent — no sound, and nothing on screen moves on its own.