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Hey, I'm Nate from Design Squad.
We're getting lots of great questions into the website,
and we just got one in from science4me, who wants to know,
"Can you make a chair out of cardboard?"
Yes.
You can make a chair out of cardboard.
I made a small one, right here.
Of course, I would test the prototype,
and what would happen?
(chuckles)
Well, this one's going to need a bit more work,
but I bet you can figure out a great way to do it.
Cardboard can be strong in lots of different ways.
What if I put my chair sideways and sat on it that way?
(grunting)
Cardboard is easy to bend in some directions
and not so easy to bend in other directions.
Cardboard is strong because of the middle layer
between the smooth outsides.
That middle layer
is the corrugated part of the cardboard.
When we line up those corrugated lines vertically,
in the direction that it needs to support weight,
it adds to the strength potential of the structure.
So, if you set it up right,
you could build a chair that would be really strong.
You should totally check out the Design Squad episode
where the teams actually had to build
full-sized cardboard furniture
that did have to be strong enough
to support their body weight.
And there's an awesome surprise
to find out about what happened in the end.
There's also a page on the Design Squad website
that shows you how to build a table out of paper.
Could be even more challenging
than building a chair out of cardboard.
Check it out.