Mrs. Boham’s STEAM students designed and built bridges to test the efficiency of failure points. SKWK8 STEAM Sharks brought the bridge down this week! Sharks explored careers in construction and civil engineering to design and build bridges from balsa wood as a concept for a future bridge over the Indian River Lagoon. They spent time analyzing the environmental and structural requirements needed for location, climate, and population. After learning bridge terminology, they applied the terms to design a bridge that would hold up under compression and tension forces. Teamwork triumphed to complete the preplanning including thumbnails of truss bridges. They drew and measured their full-scale orthographic template of side, end, and top view to confirm they were under the limit of allowed balsa wood. With skill, they explored different techniques for the strongest joints for compression and tension. Once they calculated the total material needed, they began their build. Before testing, students found the bridges’ static load to use to calculate their failure point efficiency converting pounds to grams. All students passed the minimum 10 lbs. with the highest 3 projects holding 92 lbs.! Students observed how the different designs held under the weight and made conclusions about what could have improved efficiency. Students tracked bridge performance by organizing data in a chart for comparison by class and overall winner.
