Bridge Building

Today we were challenged to build a bridge with only pipe cleaners, straws and a small piece of tape.  We had to use our knowledge of shapes to make the strongest bridge.  Every bridge had to be at least 12 inches long and 3 inches high.  Each bridge also needed to use at least 4 different polygons.  It was tested between two chairs to see how many "cars" it could hold.

We learned:

Abigail - We started with using our sketch and realized that the strong shapes would work well as a base. Then after we put our shapes together we put our road on top. 

Ewing - You don't want to make your shapes too big because they tip over a lot more easily and don't hold that much weight.  We used more small shapes to make out bridge stronger with space between the pipe cleaners to make lots of tiny rectangles.

Kylie - We were going to use our original plan, but we found out that if you do the shapes on the top it didn't work, so we decided to use the shapes on the side and it worked a lot better.  The shapes don't need to be filled in.  

Amanda - It seems like we had to change everything on our bridge because our first one was too big and kept falling over.  We decided to cut the straws to make them shorter and stronger to hold our bridge better.  The top of our bridge was not straight, so we had to make a new one.  It wasn't easy to make because the legs kept falling out and not staying together, so we did decide to use our emergency tape.

Sarah - We needed to add more shapes on our bridge, so we had the idea to design details, such as a stop sign and a trash can.

Drew - I learned that once you make your design it might not work out very well, so you actually might want to decide to make another design.  We noticed that our bridge was not working out because the square was not the strongest shape and when they were leaning on each other it became a triangle and that became the legs.   This made our bridge much more stable.

Jamie - I learned that it was easier to work in a group rather than by yourself because you don't always have all of the ideas and when your idea does not work out, then someone else can think of another idea.