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Warwick Manufacturing Group

Build a Bridge - Engineer Inside

Build a Bridge

Can you make a bridge out of household items?

What you should do:

  • Get an activity sheet from the link below
  • Follow the steps as you go down this page
  • Make notes and observations as you go
  • Experiment, tinker, and engineer!
  • Write up your experiment

Ideas and Inspiration

1 / 3
There are bridges everywhere and after this challenge you'll be an expert on how to build them!
2 / 3
This bridge stays together without any tape, glue, or any other type of connection! Thanks to Ben Ayre for this creation!
3 / 3
This bridge is made from nothing but paper. Thanks to Rebecca Mackley for this creation!

Click the arrows to see more.

The next sections are all laid out in the same order as the activity sheet. Make lots of notes and draw your designs - that's what good science is about! If you're 11-14 you can read more about each step in the Good Science Guide

Explore


Find examples and materials from around your house that you think could be useful. Use your imagination! Think about different types of bridge you might have seen to get some ideas for the kinds of materials you might need.

Hints and Tips

Next, have a look at our experts' hints and tips - how did they approach this challenge?

Rebecca Mackley

Paper Power

Plan


Find out how you can build your creation! Take your ideas and inspiration from your activity sheet, or any new ideas you've picked up from our hints and tips, and start to plan how you're going to build and experiment.

Predict


It's time to predict what is going to happen! On your activity sheet make some predictions and plan how you will measure whether your creation has been a success. Remember that a hypothesis is a statement that you can test - Sheets of paper are weak on their own but we can make a stronger structure by folding or rolling the paper into 3D shapes like cylinders, or using triangles.

So, you've got an idea in mind? Before you start testing anything out, make sure you've filled in the activity sheet so far. Then make sure that you've asked an adult for help and have a think about how to stay safe while doing an experiment.

Test


Try your creation out - how well does it work?

  • How can you measure how successful your creation has been?
  • Was your hypothesis right?

Research


So you've tested it out - did it work well? Have you learnt anything in the process? Now is the time to try and find out a bit more about what you've done.

Expert Creations

Let's find out how our engineers got on with what they created!

Rebecca Mackley

Paper Power

Improve


Having seen our engineers create their own experiments and test them out - do you have any ideas for how you could make your creation better? Try them out - see if you can get better results and measurements than you did the first time around!

Review


How are you going to tell other people about your results? What's the best way to share your new-found information?