General Definitions of terms as used on this website.

Adhesive - Any material capable of creating a bond between two materials.

Brace - A piece of a structure that is designed to resist pressure.  It typically runs between columns and is less than vertical.

Buckling load-  The amount of weight required to cause a structure to fail.

Column -  A full height vertical piece of the structure that has the primary purpose of supporting weight.

Critical Length - The length where wood no longer bends but crushes.

Glue - Any commercially available adhesive material applied in a non-solid form capable of creating a permanent bond.  Often used interchangeably with the term adhesive.  Technically "glue" is a type of adhesive made by boiling collagenous animal parts such as bones, hides, and hooves into hard gelatin and then adding water."

Jig - A gauge, pattern, or mold used as a guide to the form of a piece being made.  They can be 2 dimensional or 3 dimensional.

Lamination - Gluing layers of wood together in order to increase strength.  Laminating two pieces of wood (wood-glue-wood) would be legal since the glue is used only to adhere one piece of wood to another.  Laminating two pieces of wood with a layer of glue on the outside (wood-glue-wood-glue) would NOT be legal in most challenges since the second glue layer would be considered a 'coating' on the wood.

Member-  A general term for any part of the structure, a column or a brace.

Stress (Force) - Stress is a force or pressure where one body or body part presses on, pulls on or pushes against another body or body part. It can also be a pressure that tends to compress or twist another body or body part.

Structure- the thing you have to build to hold weight.