Project SMART96
North Cumberland Middle School
Cumberland, Rhode Island U.S.A.
Jennifer Fleury - Math / Science
Mark Gadbois - Science
Suggested Grade Levels 6-8
The integration of math and science requires innovative techniques to encourage students to learn. This activity will allow the students to browse and search for information required to complete their project. The bridge will be designed and built by the students out of inexpensive materials such as spaghetti, tape and glue. Other materials, straws or popsicle sticks, may be substituted as the situation or budget dictates. It will require the students to budget, do a cost analysis of their project and to conceptualize how their completed project will look before having built it. The spaghetti bridge can be a fun and challenging activity.
Hands On Bridge Building
Project Outcomes: Students will: · Expand their vocabulary of geometry, bridges, construction and simple tools terminology. · Apply their vocabulary in the completion of a two page paper on the history and purpose of bridge building. · Practice accessing Web pages through Netscape Navigator by following the project guidelines. · Design and sketch a completed bridge using geometric shape templates. · Practice dilation of their completed design on graph paper. · Determine material needs and the cost of those materials based on their dilated design. · Practice metric measurement (linear and mass) · Build e-mail skills through forwarding their designs and estimated project "bids" to the instructor. · Practice design interpretation by building a bridge, to meet specific criteria, based upon their design. · Inspect their bridge through logical reasoning to determine if their model bridge will meet the criteria pertinent to the project. · Determine final cost of the materials used in the building of the bridge. · Present their project and test to determine if the bridge meets the criteria of the project. · Post the results of their project to the Web page. Return to Top of FormAssessment:
Students will be assessed using the following methods: · Ability to work within a group. · Vocabulary Quizzes · Two page writing project · Weekly results handed in on disk · Budget results · Creativity and application of their research to their design. · Resistance factor, aesthetics and originality of bridge design.Math Standards Addressed:
The following math standards will be addressed: · Problem solving · Reasoning · Connections · Measurement · Geometry · PatternsScience Standards Addressed:
The following science standards will be addressed: · The Nature of Technology: Design and Systems Benchmarks 1 - 4 "Design usually requires taking constraints into account. Some constraints, such as gravity or the properties of the materials to be used, are unavoidable. Other constraints, including economic, political, social, ethical, and aesthetic ones, limit design choices." 1 · The Nature of Technology: Technology and Science Benchmarks 1-3 "In earlier times, the accumulated information and techniques of each generation of workers were taught on the job directly to the next generation of workers. Today, the knowledge base for technology can be found as well in the libraries of print and electronic resources and is often taught in the classroom."2 Return to Top of FormCurriculum Connections:
Language Arts · Expand their vocabulary of geometry, bridges, construction and simple tools terminology. · Apply their vocabulary in the completion of a two page paper on the history and purpose of bridge building. · Research skills, note taking, references and peer editing will be utilized in this paper as well as an Extra Credit two page paper on local bridges and their history. History/Social Studies · Information on local bridges and the construction projects involved in them may be obtained from the Town Hall and from the DPW. · Topographical information should also be included. Art · Bridges may be modeled in Art Class on a graphical arts computer. Industrial Technology · Models may be built out of wood Science Divide yourselves into groups of four. Having researched bridge design, you must now design and build a bridge to meet the following criteria: · It must span a 75 cm gap · It must be 15 cm wide · It must be able to support 25 g at the center and 50 g at each end · It must weigh no more than 300 g · A 1X1X2 car must not fall through the roadway surface of the bridge You must pick what type of bridge you are designing and sketch that bridge. Working as a group, be sure to pay particular attention to sketching your bridge to scale. Have one member of the group design the places that you will attach the spaghetti together. Another member can work on the materials list. A third member of the group can do the actual drawing of the overall bridge, but the last member of the group must be the "project manager". The "PM" has to ensure that all members of the group are on task and should also maintain focus on the overall project criteria. When you have completed the final design, answer the following questions: · Why did you choose this style of bridge for your project? · What makes this particular design strong? · Imagine two bridges that are exactly alike except that every dimension of one bridge is twice as large as the other. For example, the large bridge is exactly two times longer, its structural members are exactly two times thicker, and so forth. Which of the two bridges would be stronger, or is their strength the same? Following your dilated design, (see math curriculum), build your material list and initial cost estimation. Follow this design to the letter and build your bridge from the following materials: · Spaghetti - $100.00 per strand · Elmer’s Glue - $25,000 per bottle · scotch tape - $1000.00 per inch Inspect and test your bridge thoroughly before submitting your final project. A good guideline for estimation is that a nickel will weigh approximately 5.0 g. Then you must determine if your actual construction costs, (see math curriculum), exceeded your initial construction estimate. Winners will be determined by how closely they come to their initial budget estimates, originality of design, aesthetics, whether it meets the design criteria and which group comes with the lowest budget. Math For the construction of their bridges, students will be forced to incorporate certain geometric concepts. Upon completion of their bridges, students must identify examples of geometric topics such as squares, rhombus’, rectangles, triangles, acute angles, right angles, obtuse angles, parallel lines and perpendicular lines in their bridge design. Students must also show that they utilized a geometric pattern when they designed their bridge. Dilating their designs will allow students to refine both measurement and geometric concepts. Students must measure each "part" of their original design and enlarge it by the same factor throughout the design. This design must be dilated to full scale. The inspection portion of the project will allow students the opportunity to use problem solving and critical reasoning because they will need to decide if their bridge meets the criteria of the project. This way, the students do not have to enter the actual building process to discover whether their design is valid. After designing their bridge on paper, students will be required to use estimation to project an estimated budget for their bridge (Based on the prices that were listed in the science connections.) After completing the actual bridge design, students will need to submit a budget based on the actual materials used. Students will then use critical reasoning to determine why, or why not, the budgets were similar. Return to Top of Form
Internet Activities · Students will use downloaded pictures to observe bridge structures. · Teachers will gather information for this project through the Internet. · Students will post winning designs and project lesson plans. Web sites
Bridge Vocabulary
