From: George Fosselius (gfosselius@earthlink.net)
Date: Thu May 19 2005 - 07:57:23 PDT
Message-ID: <001001c55c83$11bc6e40$bc09fea9@nicodemus> From: "George Fosselius" <gfosselius@earthlink.net> Subject: Re:Anybody teaching bridge engineering Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 07:57:23 -0700
As a break from the routine in our 9th grade Exploring Technology Course (16 
different workstations human body, communications tchnologies, injection 
molding, Powerpoint, etc) we formed groups to explore bridges. They build 
truss bridges from three file folders. Tested with stacks of science books.
http://bridgecontest.usma.edu/manual.htm
"Build one our way and build one your way."
Findings: You need storage for each ~2x3' beaverboard assembly board; only 2 
out of 4 students really worked. There were disagreements, procrastinating 
and last minute hurry.  4 of 7 bridges held at least one book. WInner held 4 
or 5 books.
Students then had the opportunity to enter the West Point Bridge Design 
Contest
http://bridgecontest.usma.edu/
I seem to recall the 12" laserdisk(Alameda County LRC) about Galloping 
Gertie was interactive. If you could find the remote to your Panasonic 
Laserdisk player, you could have students hypothesize about conditions, then 
watch the experiment footage.
{If someone needs such a player apply to ACCRC http://www.accrc.org/; I have 
one squirrled away.)
George Fosselius 
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