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She's a Chinese student at Utahloy International School in Guangzhou, China.

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St. Mary's International School Hanoi (Questions)

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St. Mary's International School Hanoi (Questions)

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St. Mary's Student Pen Pal Collab-Round 1

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Learning by practice is always the best, says civil engineering professor Amr ElRagaby. That's what makes a contest to design and build a model bridge from popsicle sticks a valuable experience for his students.

"They can understand the principles, but when they have a chance to apply the theories, they learn something they will never forget," he says.

Students of his third-year class in Finite Element for Analysis and Design will test the load-bearing capacity of their structures Wednesday, and invite the campus community to watch. The competition measures their skills in analyzing, designing and constructing truss bridges built only with craft sticks, toothpicks, and glue. Each bridge will measure 750 mm and will be subjected to a load test until it collapses.

"Failure is the ultimate goal, because only then can we know the ultimate limits of their strengths and flexibility," says Dr. ElRagaby.

The competition offers cash prizes in three categories:

highest ratio of load borne to structure mass and deformation;

most accurate prediction of maximum load; and

most creative and innovative design.

The testing is open for public viewing and begins at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, July 31, in the Industrial Courtyard, Centre for Engineering Innovation.

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Model competition to test engineering students' bridge-building skills

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The public is invited to watch engineering students test the strength of their model bridges on Wednesday.

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Major Roads Projects Victoria Building Bridges Project.

This challenge is designed for grade 3 and 4 students. It is well suited to students who are working remotely or working in the classroom.

Primary teachers are encouraged to get their students involved in this Design and Technologies project and build some bridges. Upload photos of the students' constructions to add to the showcase celebration. Join the many primary schools located in Melbourne's west who are already involved and start building bridges!

The project involves,

Students constructing a bridge at home or at school.

Teachers organising a live video chat with an engineer, for their class, once the bridge building is complete.

Families will learn about the road and bridge upgrades taking place within their local community, and students will learn how to build a bridge out of recycled materials, guided by an MRPV leading engineer.

This challenge resource consists of two videos and the design of the bridge students will be building.

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Building Bridges Challenge for Years 3-4 students

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Major Roads Projects Victoria Building Bridges Project. This challenge is designed for grade 3 and 4 students. It is well suited to students who are working remotely or working in the classroom. Primary teachers are encouraged to get their students involved in this Design and Technologies project and build some bridges.

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Unit 3: Cultural Partnerships Project Rubric  

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Unit 3: Cultural Partnerships Project Rubric  

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Icebreaker Interview Questions (Google Doc)

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Icebreaker Interview Questions (Google Doc)

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Toothpicks, cardboard, cereal boxes, aluminum, plastic, styrofoam, wood, soup cans.

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We decided to build a truss bridge.

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As a part of the Engineering 210 course at Cal Poly Humboldt, students were tasked to work in groups of 3 or 4 to build a truss bridge out of balsa wood and super glue. Our group included David Topete, Kong Vang, and Andrew Kizer (listed left to right in Figure 1) and we are the KAD Group. This page is designed to showcase the bridge we built including the design, how it was made, and how it performed.

The class project had specific requirements and parameters that each bridge must follow for both design and building:

The bridge must span 36 in and rest between 2 surfaces with a 1/2 overlay on either side.

The bridge must have a minimum height of 4 in

The bridge must have a minimum width of 4 in

The bridge must support a minimum weight of 24 lbs

The bridge must be made of balsa wood and super glue only.

Our design was modeled after a typical Howe Bridge design utilizing right triangles that mirrored over the center. However, prototyping of this design was required to understand the best way to build the bridge and utilize our resources most efficiently.

Our first prototype was made of plastic members, small plastic plates to connect the joints, and metal screws to hold everything together. The purpose of this prototype was to test the construction of the Howe design on an actual scale of the project (see Figure 2). Although our with the materials being used, getting an exact scale model was not possible due to the members being longer than the desired height and width.

Our first prototype also allowed the testing of how forces would be applied to the bridge (see Figure 3). By applying weights to the center of the bridge and using sensors along various members close to the weights, we were able to determine which members would be taking the most force and thus allowed us to adjust our design to reinforce those members. While prototyping, it was found that the cross members along the top and bottom of the bridge took very little force compared to most of the side members.

Our second prototype was created to practice cutting the necessary angles for each diagonal member and to test the best types of cuts. This prototype helped us determine the two sided cuts needed to align all the center lines of each member to add extra reinforcement in the joints.

The final dimensions of our bridge were 36" by 5" by 5". Our bridge utilized 1/2" by 1/2" balsa wood for the side members, 1/4" by 1/4" balsa wood for the cross members, and 1/8" by 3" balsa wood for the gusset plates along the side and top of the bridge. All the members along the sides and the cross members had center lines aligned at the joint with 1.5" by 1.5" gusset plates covering each joint along the sides of the bridge and slightly smaller pieces for the top of the bridge.

Our bridge was able to hold 201 lbs and had a mass of 303 grams. The final load to mass ratio after conversions was 301 meaning that the bridge could hold 301 times its weight making it the winner of our lab period and also bending the metal rod that spanned the width of the bridge for the weights to hang from.

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As a part of the Engineering 210 course at Cal Poly Humboldt, students were tasked to work in groups of 3 or 4 to build a truss bridge out of balsa wood and super glue. Our group included David Topete, Kong Vang, and Andrew Kizer (listed left to right in Figure 1) and we are the KAD Group.

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What do you like to do during your holiday? Do you play sports or travel?

Julia

I go to visit my family on holiday. Sometimes I travel to other cities in Missouri . Missouri is where I live, which is the middle of the United State near Chicago.

Maria

During my holiday, I prepare for the holiday. For example, I will prepare food for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a holiday to celebrate our family and appreciate everything that we have. My family gathers at my house and we usually play soccer as a whole family. It is very fun!

What language do you speak other than english?

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"My favorite food is like hot pot rice which is the food from my own country and also I prefer to eat Italian rather than Japanese food. I like to viset ??? because I like the chicken here and I usually go to restaurants with my family and my favorite one is the restaurant that sells spiced(?) fish. It is pretty good and if I could eat any food in the world, I would eat the bou cu which is a German food and I've went to China, Japan, Austria, and the Czech and I have never been to America but I really want to go there.