CREASED BARREL

You Will Need:

• Pattern for Creased Barrel (Click here for printable GIF) You will need 4 copies total.  (large GIF, may load slow)

• Hobby and craft knife (X-acto knife)

• Scizzors

• Metal Ruler

• White Glue

TO MAKE YOUR CREASED BARREL

Print the pattern for the creased barrel.  If you have cover stock, or any other heavy paper, this will make a better creased barrel.  If your browser allows, print "full page," or "fit to page."  This will make for the biggest, and easiest to work with, creased barrel.  The GIF is set up to be printed "portrait" on your printer.  

Using the scizzors, cut out the outline of the creased barrel pattern, eliminating the margin on the paper.

Using the hobby knife and ruler, lightly score the surface of the pattern, along all the diagonal lines on the pattern.  Then transfer the longitudinal lines to the back side of the pattern, and score them lightly on the back side.  To score the paper, align the ruler with a line, and trace over the line with the hobby knife, scratching the surface of the paper, but not cutting through it.  Scoring the paper will make for a cleaner fold, and a stronger creased barrel.

Individually fold and crease along all the diagonal lines.  The folds should be made away from your score lines, so that the line you are folding along points up towards you.  Turn the paper over, individually fold and crease along the longitudinal lines.

Turn the pattern back to the original side.  You should now have a series of creases throughout the paper, along all of the pattern lines.  Starting from one side, begin to make all the folds at the same time.  Make sure that the diagonal lines are folding up, and the longitudinal lines are folding down.  As you work your way across the paper, it will begin to curve into a 3/4 circle.  Continue until all the folds are made as tight as possible.

Pull your creased barrel open slightly so that it will stand.  Repeat instructions for additional creased barrels.

EXPERIMENTING WITH THE CREASED BARREL

Take two creased barrels and attach them to a piece of paper with white glue.  The open side of the circle should be pointing down, glued to the paper.  The top ridges of the barrels should be parallel to each other.  Allow glue to dry.

Take another two creased barrels and place them on the table.  The open side of the circle should be pointing down.  The top ridges of the barrels should be parallel to each other.

Stack paperback books, as weights, on the top of the barrels, spanning them, to see how much weight they will hold.  Try stacking the same weights on the barrels glued to the paper.  Which set of barrels will hold more weights?  Figure out how many sheets of paper are in the books.  How many times heavier are the books than the barrels?  How can the paper barrels hold so much more weight than their own weight?

EXPLAINING HOW IT WORKS

Columns are the vertical elements in a structure, and beams are the horizontal elements.  Our creased barrel is acting as both beams and columns in a structure.  Beams and columns are called structural elements.  To make either beams or columns strong, it is necessary to get as much material as possible away from the centerline of them.  When we put weight on a structure, the material at the centerline of the structural elements isn't doing any work to support the weight.  It is the material that is farthest away from the centerline that does all the work.

If you watch a high rise skyscraper being built, the first thing you see go up is the metal structure.  This is mostly made of steel "I" beams.  They are called I beams because of their shape.  If you look at the picture of the I beam cross section here, you will notice that most of the material is away from the center of it. This makes the I beam strong, without having to have the wasted weight of all the material in the center.

By folding the paper, making the creased barrel, we move some of the material away from the centerline of the circle.  This material is then able to stiffen the structure, and does the actual work of carrying the load.

An efficient structure is one that uses the minimum possible material, to hold the maximum possible load (weight).  Minimum material does two things for us.  First, it saves cost.  Engineers spend a lot of time trying to save cost by reducing the amount of materials they use.  Secondly, using the least amount of materials gives us the most usable space.  If a structure fills the space it is trying to make, it doesn't have any reason to exist.  We build structures to give us usable space.

Of the two sets of creased barrels you tested, the one that was glued to the paper should have been stronger.  The paper acted as a foundation for the creased barrel, preventing it from moving around, and adding strength.  

Foundations are very important for a structure.  If you build a structure without a foundation, it is likely to fall.  Our lives are the same way.  We need a foundation in our lives to prevent them from falling.  God has given us the foundation of our relationship with Him, through His Son, Jesus, to make our lives strong.