Building Bridges

The year 9 Applied Science groups completed a disaster challenge project with STEM. This involved a task in which students had the challenge of designing and building a bridge using a selection of resources.

This challenge was set up as an earthquake had destroyed the existing bridge that connects the island to the mainland and the island was cut off from supplies. For each ml of water that successfully crossed the bridge one life was saved. The students designed some great structures and these can be seen here with the winning group and their bridge pictured above.

Here is an article about the day by one of our students, Danielle:

On Wednesday 8th of December, we participated in a school science day . A man called Kevin spoke to us about what we would do that day, we were told about a imaginary situation where a earthquake had occurred and one town needed to get water to the other. We would have to build a bridge, suitable enough to hold 3kg and be able to carry water across. Our group decided to make a suspension bridge. We all start to build separate parts of the bridge, and bit by bit it started to come together.

We had enough supports on it to keep it strong, so we were quite hopeful it would pass the tests. When the end of the day came our bridges were put to the test .Many groups before us had failed, so we were quite doubtful about our bridge by now. We balanced our bridge between to tables and started to pour the water on, it got to the other side successfully. Now we just had to get it to hold the 3kg weights, one by one the weights went on , and as they did , the more the bridge began to snap, we eventually put the last weight on and it managed to hold it, so we passed the tests. However we were given a budget, and our group had gone over that by about £4 million, so our bridge wasn’t chosen, but overall it was a fun and enjoyable day!




Ellie wrote:

On Wednesday the 8th of December, we were told a man would be coming in to spend the day with us building stuff based on science. We had to build a bridge that would support holding water and that would carry 3 kilograms, we started off the day by having to build a tower just out of paper that in the end would have to hold 100 grams, my group won that challenge. The day was good because everyone got involved with making the bridge.

Making the bridge meant that we had to use things like wood planks, glue, tape and wood sticks. We had approximately 4 hours to work on our bridge, it was a really good day overall because you had to work as a team and if we hadn’t of been in groups, it wouldn’t of worked out the same because to do what we had to do, we had to have teamwork. I enjoyed the day. At the end of the day when we tested our bridges, our bridge could hold the weights but it leaked when we put the water on it. It was a really good day and I enjoyed it and had fun. It was also fun watching the other groups make their bridges because they all had a good idea on what they wanted to make their bridges end up like. I’m glad that we got to have the science day because it was good and I had a good day.





Another Danielle wrote:

On Wednesday the 8th of December, we took part in a day of science in the hall. At first we were given 10 pieces of paper and we had to build a tower using just paper no glue or cellotape and it had to hold a 1kg weight. Our tower was the tallest reaching a height of 54cm and it successfully held the 1kg weight.

After that we got started on building our bridges. The bridge had to have a water duct and space for humans to travel across, it also had to hold a 3kg weight without snapping in half. Unfortunately our water duct leaked but our bridge structure remained strong and the weight did not snap the bridge in half. We had a range of different materials to choose from such as wood and plastic in all different shapes and sizes. We were given 4 hours to complete our bridge structure. Many other groups experienced the same problem.

To fulfil the task we had to have a good level of team work and corporation this is what got us through the day and what gave us a successful outcome.





Hannah wrote:

On Wednesday 8th December 2 year nine science groups had a day of puzzles and fun. The first puzzle we had to do was make a tower out of 10 sheets of paper and a 1kg weight was placed on top of the tower and it had to stand for 10 seconds.

Then we had a talk about what it was and the sponsors. This lasted about 5 minutes. After that he set us off on our main task of the day. We had to make a bridge out of wood, plastic and glue. It had to hold 3kg weights and some water that was poured down it. My group struggled at first on picking a design. After a while we picked a design and started. Over all our bridge was successful with some of the water, but then it started leaking, we failed at the weights as after 2kg it collapsed.

I think the day was fun and I prefer learning this way. Everyone had fun and we had to work as a team the whole day so we grew in teamwork and learnt more about building things.