Awesome Bridges Activity

Bridge building can be one of the most frustrating projects for teachers and students. If students are lucky enough to have their bridge survive the peeling from the wax paper, shifting members during gluing, warping wood or pasta, storage and assembly, they're usually not overly proud of the common truss bridge they've created. Awesome bridges do not suffer from these problems.. The system allows students to successfully design and build the most modern, creative, testable structures you've ever seen. 

Awesome Bridges will change bridge building forever.

The Awesome Bridge Building system uses a widely accepted structural method for joining members; it pins them together. Most structural engineering calculations assume pined joints between members. That means that Awesome Bridges test closer to engineered calculations than traditional model bridges.

The dowels used to pin joints together also serve as perpendicular members running between the sides of the Awesome Bridges. They keep the sides aligned and parallel. They also keep the bridge from twisting during testing (a common problem for model bridges). Dowels also serve as the perfect attachment point for steel cables (wire).

Students do not need to understand or identify the forces acting on individual wood bridge members because wood works well under tension and compression. Awesome Bridges require students to analyze the forces acting on individual members so they can properly use force specific members such as tension only cables.

Awesome Bridges are structurally sound without glue. This means that you can perform testing to determine design flaws, reengineer the bridge to fix the flaws, and test it again. You can continue to test and revise the bridge until it is ideal. That's the engineering design process; a critical engineering process that, until now, has always been absent from bridge building.

Awesome Bridges come with a comprehensive set of illustrated documents that take you from design conception to post-test evaluation. The documents show you how to do everything from cutting members to making a drilling jig.  They even include bridge layout sheets for alternative designs and scale drawings.

Note: Some of the bridges pictured above use plastic connector strips. These connector strips are not included with the kit, but can be purchased separately: Connector Strips

Activity Documents

Possible Engineering Challenges

    ▪ Design and build a signature bridge to fit into a specific location (perhaps your community)

    ▪ Design and build a bridge to survive a natural disaster

    ▪ Design and build the lowest weight bridge that will support a fixed load

    ▪ Design and build a bridge that will support the most weight in proportion to its dead weight

    ▪ Design and build a cantilevered structure that will hold a given weight the furthest distance from its anchor point

      The engineering challenge possibilities are endless...

Innovation Components

Innovation components can be purchased in addition to the Awesome Bridges Activity to allow for greater alternative and innovative designs. Only a few innovation components are usually needed to create alternative designs, so your supply of innovation components can be used for many bridges. Here are our recommendations:

    ▪ 5mm x 10mm Wood Sticks

    ▪ Connector Strips

    ▪ 5mm Dowels

    ▪ Perpendicular Adaptors

    ▪ Chip Board (used to simulate the bridge deck)

    ▪ Galvanized Colored Wire

    ▪ Anything else you can dig up (Raid the recycling bin, wood, metal, plastic, etc.)

Wood glue is needed for this activity. 

Do you have the tools to build your bridge?