Now it’s YOUR turn! Can you make a bridge from recycled materials that will bear a 1kg weight? Write it up and link to to our linky below (open until May 10th. We are going to do some research into those last two points and find out together.
![fun bridge building teens fun bridge building teens](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/47/b9/64/47b9647004c69455351e5bc59b7ff09d.jpg)
By placing a few of these next to each other we formed an incredible strong structure that could take a lot of weight on top! We wondered if some engineers use cylindrical bundles in a similar way and also if we could find a similar structure in nature. Our final attempt to try something different was to roll up the straws into bundles and tape them around the middle. Outside of Mumbai, India, children were dropping out of school rather than wading through a polluted stream in route to their classes every.This site may harm your computer. In fact, it could carry 2 or even 3 kg easily! This was much stronger and didn’t bend at all under the weight. We made a second straw raft shape and taped it together, then layer it over the top of the first at opposing angles. They did indeed hold the bag of sugar when it was placed on top, but it bowed in the middle and wasn’t a strong bridge! Could we improve the design? What would make it even stronger? I pointed out the tape and asked what did she think we could use it for? She wanted to try taping them together to make a raft type shape, so we did that and it made the straws much more solid as they held together. I asked her to predict what she thought would happen and she said “the bag won’t stay up, it will fall I think.” And she was right, the straws just separated form each other and rolled away. Then she proposed laying many straws next to each other, loosely, over the blocks. Immedaitely Cakie laughed and said “those straws are WAY too bendy, they won’t work!” We put just one straw across our blocks as a fun test to see what would happen and quite obvious it couldn’t bear any weight at all!
![fun bridge building teens fun bridge building teens](https://www.autismnwpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/teen-friendship-photo.jpg)
I gave the girls a huge pile of drinking straws, some sellotape, two building blocks to create a bridge support and a 1kg bag of sugar as a weight to test.
![fun bridge building teens fun bridge building teens](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/87/e0/d5/87e0d50eeb03651cc63e97566b8a411b.jpg)
Here os the exciting challenge as we set it to our own kids and now to you too:Ĭan you design and build a bridge using everyday and recycled materials that will bear a 1kg (approx 2lb) weight?
#Fun bridge building teens series#
Today we are participating in a fun science series along with Inspiration Laboratories and Science Sparks called Challenge and Discover! We are setting a fun challenge for ALL of our readers to participate in along with us, whether you have your own blog or not, and hopefully you will share your ideas with us in our link up or directly on our Facebook walls. Set up a fun science and engineering activity for kids using everyday materials to construct a bridge together! Make it into a challenge to see how much weight the bridge can carry and compare results using different methods and materials.