Bridges under construction
This week the 6th Graders and the 2nd Graders did an engineering design challenge in STREAM focused on strong bridge building. With the same amount of materials (25 popsicle sticks and 4 feet of masking tape), students had to come up with the strongest bridge structure to go across a 12 inch chasm across two chairs. Teams of two had to work together to plan their designs, utilize resources effectively, and create their structures. Once the bridges were created, weights were added to see which could support the most weight. Building a strong bridge was the main design objective and working together with your team to collaborate was another goal of the activity.
The sixth graders got right to work on the challenge, and tried different designs. None of the bridges ended up looking similar, but many different designs were utilized. In the end, building a strong bridge plank with overlapping sticks that rested on top of the chair was able to withstand more weight than those that relied on the tape to adhere to the chair itself. It was exciting to continually add the weights to each bridge until they inevitably crashed! The total amount of weight supported was then recorded for each bridge. See some more pictures from the bridge engineering design challenge below.
Overall, the activity utilized creativity, design, teamwork, and collaboration to solve a problem. Both the 6th graders and 2nd graders did a great job working together and building strong structures.
Working under the bridge
Teamwork and collaboration
Adding some supports
The team design that held 1500 grams
Putting on finishing touches
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