During our first week back, we have had a focus on Design and Technology. We have been thinking about structures. As lots of you will be very aware there is a bridge near Grantley Hall which is regularly broken. The children are hoping to help create a solution for this problem.

We began by researching the area the bridge is in, thinking about the users of the bridge and exploring different types of bridges. The first time of bridge we explored closely was a beam bridge, we talked about the features of this bridge and where it would be used, we then tested some bridges and found that they lacked strength. In order to overcome this we learnt about arch bridges. Which were similar to a beam bridge but with an arch placed underneath the weight was distributed across the whole bridge, strengthening the bridge. We put this idea to the test.

Our work then led us to build truss bridges. First we made these bridges out of spaghetti, working in pairs we made beams of spaghetti before measuring and snapping the beams to the sizes we need. Sticking them together with a lot of tape we hoped they would be stable and strong. Once we had completed these structures we tested them by placing weights on and counting how much they could withstand before they broke. This work helped us identify the need for accurate measuring and strong materials.

We took what we had learnt from the spaghetti bridges and applied this to working with wood. Armed with saws, sandpaper and clamps we began carefully measuring pieces of wood, cutting them and carefully assembling a truss bridge.

With much trepidation we then tested our bridge.

We finished off our work by evaluating the bridge and what he had learnt.