Bailey Bridge

Last year, Mr B and I saw a teaching resource that was advertised in the Education Gazette. It showed high school students sitting around a 1/6th scale bailey bridge that they had created. The resource demonstrated how temporary bridges were constructed and assembled. Possibly more important however was the social aspect behind it. A team, working together, to achieve a common goal...perfect for bonding a new class. 

After having a run through in the morning, the boys decided that they wanted to see how fast it could be completed in the afternoon. 16mins and 33secs is our record so far...I wonder how much faster we could go? 

The panels go up

The rakers start to straighten and strengthen the panels.

Transons will support the chess (decking timber) later on

Foster oversees quality control.

Most of the transoms are on

Team work was the key to a quick successful build

The stringers go on top of the transoms

Panels are still being contructed

Alex pinning the panels together

Jack bolting on a racker to the panel and transom

Foster, Levi and Flanny; hard at it.

Will and Kobie begin to add the chess

The beginning to the end of the build. We are flying!

Jai and Alex

Foster and Jack

Still hard at it.

Halfway there...

Now the ribalds (kerbing) can be added

Jack having a smocko break

The final few panels are added

Daniel going for it

Levi, Dan and Kobie

Not far away now fellas...about 12 mins into the build

Add caption

Jonny...quiet AND working!

All you need Foster is shorter shorts and a singlet...

Zeal

Broc

16mins and 33secs later...I think we could go faster however.

Quality control will have to be better next time fellas...i can see a decking timber sticking up. Who's in charge?

Build a Bridge V2.0 (Return of the Bridge!)

After watching the videos (in the post below) the boys had another go at constructing their paper bridges. This time the time available was halved (45mins).

Team ThunderPandas with a design that was incredibly strong and practical...just like them really!

Team Epic Fail did not live up to their team name. Nice work fellas!

Team Majestic Unicorns with their completely useless bridge that "won"

Team Super Unknown with the same design as last time..except that the chicken  feet are pointing downwards this time

Team The Fallen...'nuff said

There was definitely some learning going on. Arches and triangles used this time.

Unfortunately we did find a fault in the scoring system. Even though some groups (or should I say person...lets call him Yoseph to hide his identity!) believed they had met the design brief, I'm sure that the bridge falling over or the bus continually plummeting over the side and killing every single living soul on board ...was not in the spirit of the competition.

The impossible Bridge

Here is a little video I found. It has useful ideas for our next bridge building competition. If I find any others I'll post them here as well.

This clip while simple, is very good...especially if you were making newspaper bridges!

Build a Bridge...and get OVER it!

Liam and Broc begin the supports

Today we began our technology unit with a bang! The boys were given a task of building a bridge from newspaper. They were given 15 sheets of newspaper, 10m of tape, 4m of string and a pair of scissors.

The Brief

• Build the highest bridge over the longest 'gap' and drive a 300gm car along the entire length. 
• The vehicle required a level road, at least 50mm wide, with a vertical clearance of 75mm. It must travel the entire length of the bridge.
• The bridge deck must be at least 150mm off the floor.
• The bridge is not allowed to bend any more than 30% its height from the floor.

Scoring

To win you have to have the highest score. The score was the length of the bridge+the height of the bridge above the ground+the distance between the supports.

Team ThunderPandas effort was 30+30+27.5 for a grand total of 87.5pts. All other teams failed to meet the design brief and were disqualified.  

This was a very interesting mornings work. All designs were very very flawed!!! (and thats putting it nicely. I wonder what changes we'll make when we do this again Monday afternoon. 

Inspired by nature...the boys make their  struts look like chicken legs...!

Team Majestic Unicorns early work looks promising...



Team Thunderpandas are well on the way

Nice looking design from the boys...what was the purpose of the string boys ?Just there as decoration?

This design, which we were unable to assess because of it 'stability issues' would have been able to handle A LOT of weight! Anyone know why?

Probably the worse looking build boys. You only won because no other team's designs worked.