BRIDGES BRIDGES BRIDGES
The Bridges of LEGO® County
At PCS, a common challenge is to build a bridge! Sounds simple...for example in our Yellow Badge for Architecture, students are asked to build a bridge two feet long and one foot high capable of supporting fifteen pounds of weight at any point. Later in the Green Badge, students are asked to build a bridge
spanning a six foot gap able to hold the same weight!
Mario Salvadori sums up bridge building best:
...the type of bridge best suited to a particular site depends on a large number of factors. The length to be spanned, the nature of the river banks, the free height required under the bridge, the variations in the river's water level, the materials and the specialized labor available for its construction, the kind of traffic present and that to be expected, the kind of road approaches usable, and last but not least, economic and even aesthetic considerations together with the preferences of the engineer---all play a role in the choice of a bridge type. If one considers all the possible combinations of these factors, then no large bridge can be identical with any other."
Buy his book!
So there are jillions of different types of bridges! To help simplify this a tad,
you have your arch bridges, your truss bridges, your
cantilever bridges,
your turntable bridges, and so on. All of which have been built or represented in LEGO® bricks!
As an educator, asking my students to build a bridge represents an
awesome educational opportunity!
Bridge projects can be adapted to the dynamics of a large group ( See the National Engineering Week
Challenge for 1995 ) or to the needs of an individual. They represent an
excellent starting point for discussing history ( The Roman's use of aqueducts,
Eiffel's early work in bridges, the overnight building of trestles in the American Civil War,
the challenges of the Brooklyn Bridge where men experienced the "bends", the
incredible suspension of the Golden Gate Bridge where my grandfather wired the
telephones on the tops of the supports!, and so on ). They are an excellent
way to introduce architecture and the different forces that act upon structure.
And maybe most important of all..they are just darn fun. For example, the PCS in
Redmond built a huge LEGO® bridge that you could cross a nearby creek with! Awesome!
In fact, if a parent or a fellow educator had access to nothing but bricks,
you could still build bridges!
Think big!
Check out THE LIVING BRIDGE PROJECT by some enterprising German fellows!
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Copyright© 1996,1999 by Richard Wright for PCS Education Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved