London Bridge is Falling Down?

Our Second and Third Grade STEM Club members put their engineering skills to work yesterday, building bridges! There were four types of bridges they were required to build and test: a beam bridge, arch bridge, accordion bridge, beam bridge with arch support, and finally, and accordion bridge with a beam on top and a beam on the bottom! Phew! Hard work!

After testing each bridge, our students found the accordion bridge with the beams on the top and bottom would hold the heaviest loads! We learned the more support the bridge has, the heavier the load it can handle. We also talked about the importance of engineers building bridges correctly, as it can have disastrous results! (Check out the video of Gallopin' Gertie to see an example!)

Click the play button below to see Gallopin' Gertie!

Stay tuned to see what our fourth and fifth grade students were up to yesterday!