Bridge building

Derrick Miller
The Duncan Banner

May 08, 2008 12:51 pm

— It may have taken several nights to build bridges, but it took only a bucket of sand to find the breaking points of those bridges.
Fourteen Duncan Middle School students participated in a bridge-building contest, which was made possible because of a grant from the Duncan Public Schools Foundation. To compete, students had to build a miniature bridge from toothpicks and glue.
To test the strength of each bridge, students attached a bucket to their bridges. Once the bucket was in place, sand was added to give more weight.
DMS teacher Cindy Parks said, “I think it went exceptionally well. I didn’t think toothpicks and glue would hold so well.”
The top two bridges were built by Kevin Roddy and Chris Totty. To figure out which bridge had the best efficiency, which is the total weight applied to the bridge to the point of breaking divided by the bridge’s mass. Measuring the efficiency was one of the main goals of the program.
Parks said the competition was a way for students to learn about geometric features, the history of bridge building and construction. The project required several skills.
“The whole objective was to see how to design a bridge that could hold the most weight,” she said.
Roddy and Totty said they were surprised at the amount of weight their bridges could support. Roddy said he changed his bridge design five times before settling on a bridge structure.
“It held up a lot more than I thought it would be,” Roddy said.
Totty agreed.
“I was kind of surprised it held that much,” he said.
They got their opportunities to build bridges that could support exponential amounts of weight. They just had to find the right design and consistency of toothpicks that worked best for the project.
Many of the students spent days working on their projects. Roddy said he spent a long time trying to complete his bridge.
Totty said he didn’t spend nearly as much time on his bridge as Roddy did on his, but he had an idea of what he wanted to do.
“It took only half a day to put it together,” he said.
For Roddy and Totty, the bridge construction applied to things they were interested in. Both said they like physics and sciences, which came in handy for the project.
Roddy said he likes building models, and the competition gave him a chance to do so. Totty said he liked building the bridge, but that wasn’t the only benefit the project had.
“I liked getting out of school but still learning,” Totty said.
The final results for efficiency were Roddy with 75, Totty with 73, and Stephen Wood and Kaylee Hartman with 45. Rachel Starr won for most aesthetically pleasing.

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