Bridge Design Project

1st year Civil Engineers begin a group bridge design project but exploring various bridge arrangements with PASCO kits - and carrying out non destructive tests.

They can then determine whether they want to design a suspension bridge, bowstring arch, or truss bridge etc, over the course of the project.

A list of 10 design requirements are given to students as a design brief. For instance, the final bridge must survive X kg of load, without deflecting any more than Y cm.

Students are given a range of materials to choose from to construct their bridge, each carrying associated costs.

On testing day, each group installs their abutments, adds the soil (sand), and then their superstructure.

The bridge is tested to failure!

Records are kept of material costs and how many design requirements are passed/failed, so that each group gets a final score in the Bridge competition.

A key note here is that the majority of marks can be gained by producing quality drawings and reports, rather than focussing on the test-day results.