Building Bridges

Bridges
A bridge is a structure to cross an open space or gap. Bridges are mostly useful for crossing rivers, valleys, or roads by vehicles but people have also used bridges for a long time for walking.
There are six different types of bridges: 

• Cable-stayed bridges
• Truss bridges
• Beam bridges
• Arch bridges
• Suspension bridges
• Cantilever bridges.

​You can design and build any one of these kind of bridges but you will need to tell me why you chose this type of bridge.

There are other types of bridges and some contain elements of a few of the above ones so feel free to get a little creative with your task.

​Some things to consider 

• Where will the bridge be situated? Different types of bridges are more suitable to different types of terrain. It might be a good idea to find an image on the internet of a place that needs a bridge and then try to build the bridge you think would be most suitable.
• Materials: What materials are you going to use. You might need to raid the recycling bin to gather materials over the coming days. This is best done after you have decided what kind of bridge you would like to build.
• You’re bridge needs to be strong (and not just pretty). Make sure it can support some weight. If you have a toy car and it can hold it up then you are succeeding. Can it support more than 1 car?
• Do a Google search for Children’s bridge building projects for ideas of the kinds of bridges you could build.
• Remember that this isn’t a competition to build the biggest bridge. Go for design and strength rather than size.
• It’s ok to also build your bridges digitally in something like Minecraft but remember your bridge also needs to support the laws of gravity. There are things you can do in Minecraft that simply won’t work in the real world.

This is a video the Multi Class made a few years ago showing some of the bridges they built in Minecraft. 

Minecraft Bridges from Cormac Cahill on Vimeo.