Bridge Building: Focus: Structural Engineering Grades - Educational ...

Douglas R. CarrollDepartment of Basic EngineeringUniversity of Missouri-RollaABSTRACTA one-hour presentation was developed to get elementary school students interested inengineering. The presentation begins with the students building a six-foot long structurallysound bridge which they can crawl across. A pictorial presentation helps them learn to identifysome of the different types of bridges: truss, stone arch, steel arch, concrete girder, cablestayed,and suspension. They are introduced to the fundamental engineering concepts oftension and compression. Demonstrating that if a tension member is replaced with a chain thenthe bridge is still strong, but if a compression member is replaced with a chain the bridge willcollapse reinforces these concepts. The presentation is designed to be fun for the children andthe presenter, and to introduce the children to the field of engineering.INTRODUCTION -OBJECTIVEThe objective of this project was to develop a means of getting elementary school childreninterested in engineering. Most teachers consider engineering to be a good career choice andwould like to include some engineering units in their lessons, but there are very limited less