The Waddle & Co. Bridge

         In my urban planning class here at gce we have been researching and learning about different bridges and the build of them. We talked about an arch bridge, suspension bridge, truss bridge, and beam bridge. We took a trip down to look at some bridges. Specifically the bridges on the Chicago river. We looked at the build and how they used trusses. The bridges used triangles so that wind could go through them, we saw that they used steel and that from what we saw they were in good condition and seemed stable. We also talked to a structural engineer from GMB names Drew Valentine. He told us about what he does as an engineer for buildings. He also helped us with our bridges and gave us tips on how we can make them better and answered any questions we had. Taking everything we have learned about bridges and from our field experiences we were assigned to build a bridge that could hold at least ten pounds using only fifty popsicle sticks and hot glue. Nobody could use anything else other than that and once we were done we did a bridge off! Below is a slide show of the process of how my partner and I built and designed our bridge along with the calculations like the potential velocity, kinetic energy, sine and cosine, and what this tells us about the law of conservation of energy. There is also a video of our bridge getting the weight put on it!

I was surprised on how much weight it held because it was one of the smaller bridges. Overall, I loved this project it was so much fun and seeing everyones different designs was so cool. I would do this again and just add more support towards the ends because I'm sure that's what made it break. I would recommend doing this for yourself and challenging your skills and seeing if you can build a bridge that holds at least ten pounds using only 50 popsicle sticks and hot glue.