3D - Bridge

Today was a test of our ability to create bridge structures. 

The first half of the day was quite straight forward as we had to create 5 bridge structures out of 5 pieces of A3 paper. Each piece was meant to be different from the other and be aesthetically appealing as well as functional as a bridge. 

The flat piece of paper with lines represented the river and the bridge could not touch the river. 

The second half of the day held a group challenge of all working together to create a bridge from cardboard, rubber bands, bamboo sticks and tape. The brief stated that yhe bridge had to be high enough to allow a boat to pass underneath (a table folded up) as well as stable  enough to allow an electronic car to pass over and could have two structural points made of bamboo that touched the ground.                                                                                      Different groups went about this differently, some had their bridges starting at a high point and ending at a low point and visa versa. Other groups used a large mass of elastic bands to create a bridge mainly based on tension which is similar to the O2 as its structure is based mainly on tension.

We started our structure off by joining bamboo sticks together using elastic bands, this still gave the bamboo the freedom to bend a bit but made it sturdy. We made two sets of bamboo attached together using bamboo that extended the length of one table to the other. 

We then created the cardboard distance, we made sure it was wide enough to fit the car by adding and extra 5cm either side of the width of the car and used this as our measurement for the bridge width we taped all of the cardboard pieces together. We then attached the board to the bamboo structure that went the length of one table to the other using tape. 

Once we did this we realised that the bridge was unstable and too low to allow the boat to pass under. This lead to us creating a plynth at both ends of the bridge. We used triangular structures to do this and we knew from past experience, ie.chairs that triangles were strong structures.

We created two structural points on the floor that would help keep the bridge stable as well help make the bridge high enough to allow the boat to pass under. I joint 3 bamboo sticks together using elastic bands to hold them together at one end and at the other end spread the sticks so that they touched 3 separate areas under the bridge. This was then taped the based of the bridge and done again on the other half of the bridge.  

We decided to create barriers to make sure the car did not fall off. We cut card and taped it to the sides of the road. I thought it would have been much stronger to have created a wider road then folded up the side to create carriers either side of the road.

We decided to decorate our bridge with stop signs etc. to add a visual appeal. 

Overall our bridge was successful as it allowed a boat to pass under and a remote car to be driven across it. It was good having to work in a team as uou had to incorporate many people's ideas and it allowed you to learn from others as well as them from you. I think as a team we worked well together and listened to each others ideas which is evident from how our bridge turned out and enjoyed the task especially as I did not think we would be able to create a bridge that functioned to the tasks needs when I first heard the brief and all the materials we had work with.