Re:Anybody teaching bridge engineering

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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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