The Building and Design of a Bridge

Our task at hand was to build a bridge, but not only that, it was to build an efficient bridge. For it to be an efficient bridge it had to hold more weight, than it weighed. We had to be able to design and build our own bridge. Both of which had to be good, because if either one was subpar, our bridge would not have been efficient. Not only did we have to do that, but we were held to many constraints and rules. The hardest challenge for me was that there were so many variables I could not account for; this was my first time actually building something similar to this. There was also another underlying challenge that came with this project; it was to find out if you were able to work well with a partner, and if you were capable of choosing a good partner. The challenges were complex in a way, at the surface they seemed simple, but were actually much more difficult than expected.

When I first started to design my bridge, I began to think of bridges I had seen in real. That did not go so well, with my memory being vague and the bridges that did come to mind being seamlessly impossible to build, off to the internet I went. I was able to find the three main bridge designs; the Pratt, the Howe, and the Warren. To what I saw I decided that the Howe Bridge was the most structurally sound. So we used that as the base of our idea/design. We added our own flare by dispersing vertical supports throughout our structure. We had decided to make the side and of our bridge with balsa wood and make the bottom of it out of Popsicle. We wanted to fortify the bottom, so we turned the Popsicle stick on its side, because it was stronger that way. With our design in hand we were able to calculate the total weight of our structure, which came out to b...

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... over one-hundred pounds we did have one of the best efficiencies with our bridge holding over fourteen-hundred times its weight. Our efficiencies turned out to be one of the bests in the class.

We tackled this challenge head on. We worked efficiently with each other, which paid off because we had a great efficiency. I thoroughly enjoyed this project, it was a very nice introduction, into the other projects we will have. It gave me a nice hindsight into where my skill level might be in these types of things. I have a few suggestions on how this project could be better for future students, since this is an introduction project, I would have to say there should not have been so many constraints. Also you should try letting the students choose what types of material they want. All in all this was a very enjoyable and instructional introduction project to this class.