What are the physics behind building a bridge? What keeps it from falling into the deep waters below? What type of design makes a bridge stronger? Students learned the answers to these questions and more in the Bridge Building Challenge class at Camp Discover. The first day they worked on simple designs, then they dove deeper into the bridge building process and used a sketch to construct one side wall of a bridge and then the other. By the end of classes Friday, they will be well on their way to having a structure ready for a strength test to see if it would actually do its job.
Riley H. and Michael N. named their project “Serial Spanners.” When asking how they felt about bridge building, Michael was glad their bridge is the size it is. “I can’t imagine how time consuming it would be to build a life-sized bridge,” he said.
— Jennifer Wilson, Center staff
