Custom Bridge Building Kit

thingiverse

This multi-piece bridge building kit is ideal for learning in a fun and useful way! There are 4 different pieces in this set, anchor pieces which are the anchor points for the bridge. The beams which are used as the main building piece for the bridge, the pins which hold all pieces together and hold the beams to the anchors, and lastly the brace pieces to hold the sides of the bridges together (depth wise). There are several possibilities of what type of bridge to create and you can challenge yourself to make longer and increasingly skilled designs, the only limit is your creativity. Note for size : bridge beams are 10cm long by 1cm wide anchor is 1.5cm by 5cm by 4 cm EDIT : a second "pin" design is on its way, the new pin will be 12mm long in order to fit through 4 layers of beams which may be necessary at some point depending on design. How I Designed This This build your own bridge kit was designed using Creo parametric. The design process started by some reflection on what my favorite part of school as a child was, that was easily the design and tech where we could physically building something. Using this concept, I pieced together a project in my mind in which one could uniquely design their own creation using standard pieces. After some trial and error on Creo (3d modeling software) these modular pieces that could be combined in many different ways came about. When designing the parts it was important to keep in mind to keep it so everyone could have their own unique design. Custom Section Project: Custom Bridge Building Kit Objectives: There are many different things to be learned in the designing of a bridge some learning outcomes are as follows: 1) Strongest shapes - squares, rectangles, triangle what works best for a bridge? 2) What are some important things to keep in mind when designing a bridge (or any project in general) i.e: how much material do you have? What are the criteria that the bridge needs to meet? etc? 3) how to apply what they learn in class to real life ie: which angles work best for certain needs? How to measure properly, etc Audiences: Grade 7-8 , no prior skill level or understanding of engineering or design is needed. Preparation: In order to prepare for this project students could google and research real life bridges and look at pictures and find out what bridges look like and different types of designs. Steps: This kit allows students to design their own unique bridge and learn about the strengh of triangles, and other basic engineering concepts. This allows students who may not do well in traditional subjects to try their hand and potentially flourish at a new skill. 1) The students would most likely be grouped up in pairs or groups of 3. 2) each group would receive an exact number of parts ie : 10 beams, 3 anchors and 20 pins. 3) the groups read over the criteria ie: the bridge must be 20cm long and be able to hold 200 grams. 4) The design, building and testing period - groups get to design and test their bridges over and over until they are happy with their design 5) presenting their design - present the design to the class, explain why they they chose their certain design and what its strengths or weakness may be ie: strength: it is very strong, weakness: uses to much material. Could also bring the students on the 3d printing part as well and they get to choose what the fill level and quality setting their pieces are printed on. Result: By the end of the activity students should have designed and built their own custom bridge and learned basic design concepts and gotten the chance to share their ideas with fellow classmates. The assessment could be based on several parts 1) how they work in a group situation 2) the presentation to their fellow peers 3) if their bridge fits all the design criteria or not 4) the overall design of bridge / how it looks aesthetically.