From Atomic Frontier.

I spent three years trying to find out which typeface’s capital "I" makes the best I-beam. Along the way I learned how fonts came to be and why I beams look the way they do.

Huge thanks to Coby, Hayami, Kerri, and the teams at the MIT Hobby Shop and MakerWorkshop.

Have a go with the code at: https://github.com/AtomicFrontierCode/typefaces
Or read the paper (pre-print) at: http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.35453.88802

0:00 Abstract
0:40 Literature Review
2:15 The mechanics of I-Beams
4:28 Mechanical methods
5:50 Breaking Beams
7:10 Finite element maddness
9:41 Alphabet soup
11:59 Conclusions and Practical Implications

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This video was brought to you by an unhealthy amount of coffee and our awesome Patrons at https://www.patreon.com/atomicfrontier.

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Hi, I’m James. I explore the world looking for interesting engineering stories which explore complex issues in interesting ways. I hold a First-Class Honors in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Western Australia and am currently studying a Masters of Space Systems Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

My website is https://www.atomicfrontieronline.com and you can join the Atomic Frontier Discord server to talk about cool engineering stuff at https://discord.gg/4QZc3jYdTR. You can help support my work and see some cool behind-the-scenes content at https://www.patreon.com/atomicfrontier.