As part of maths week (next week) year 5 and 6 were very lucky to have a visit from an engineer, Mrs George, today. Over the day, we learned a lot about the different types of engineering but focused particularly on civil engineering. After discussing how to make structures strong and exploring some examples, pupils were set the challenge of building a bridge that could span at least 35cm. Every group was given 50 lollipop sticks and glue with which they needed to plan, design and make a bridge which could withstand a load of 6 kg. The bridges will not be ready for testing until next week (as the glue needs to dry) but we did test some of the bridges made by Mr Ross and Mrs George. Amazingly, these bridges, made only using lollipop sticks, could with stand 6kg (one of Mr Ross's did break - but it was loaded from the top not the deck of the bridge so was not as strong). We had a fantastic day and are very grateful to Mrs George, who gave up her time to share her expertise. Next week, testing...
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| Matching tasks to types of engineers |
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| Testing our Duplo bridges |
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| Exploring strong shapes |
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| Designing bridges |
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| Constructing bridges |
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| Modelling a suspension bridge. |
