Bridge(t)

Urban Planning is the third and final class in the STEAM Global Design curriculum. The class, in a nutshell, is about how to create an ecosystem fit for a city. In the first unit we learned how an architectural structure can hold large amounts of weight by focusing on bridges. The main objective of this action project is to explore the various design options and resources to create a durable bridge. I’m most proud of the bridge (Bridget) that my partner and I built because everyone doubted us, but in the end our design did exactly what is was supposed to and more.

The bridge that inspired me and my partner was the Gazela Bridge. Our model resembles the Gazela Bridge because it is a flat and straight structure and looks like it has three layers just like our bridge.

Wikipedia contributors. "Gazela Bridge." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 7 Mar. 2014. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.

The Gazela Bridge is the most important bridge in Belgrade, Serbia, across the Sava river. It is a part of the city highway and passes through the wider city center, connecting Belgrade with Niš to the south, and Novi Sad to the north. The bridge was designed by a group of engineers led by Milan Đurić, and built by the Mostogradnja company.

Our bridge is very simple and to the point. It is your basic straight across, flat, beam bridge. At first glance it’s very deceiving, but our bridge divides the strength along its length, leaving no room for weak links where the bridge can collapse. 

Bridge Sketch (2015)

The scale in the image above only applies to the length, but 1 inch on the drawing equals 1.8 inches on the model. We only made the length to scale because we wanted to be able to show the layers, but the popsicle sticks are so thin they would just be drawn as lines, which isn’t very clear.

AG Labeled Picture (2015)

AG Compression and Tension (2015)

AG Body Diagram (2015)

Our final product ended up using only 49 popsicle sticks. Our bridge is 13.375 inches long and 625 inches tall. It is 180 degrees across (a straight angle).

AG Side View (2015)

AG Top View (2015)

We came up with our structure because we knew that with the length and amount of popsicle sticks given, this was the thickest possibility for the body of the bridge. We thought that the thicker it would be the more weight it would hold. After building our original design, we had an extra 5 sticks left, and we decided to use 4 of those 5 leftover sticks to make the joints sturdier.

The main problem we encountered were the joints, because if they were all to be in the same place they could easily snap. We fixed this by shifting the middle layer so it had joints in a different position on the bottom and top layer, and we also the used 4 extra sticks, which we cut in half, to strengthen the top and bottom layers’ joints.

Work Cited

• "Bridges - WD-STEM." Bridges - WD-STEM. Buncombe County Schools. Web. 21 Apr. 2015 from https://sites.google.com/a/bcsemail.org/wdstem/bridges. 
• "New York State Covered Bridges - Truss Diagrams." New York State Covered Bridges - Truss Diagrams. 30 Sept. 2005. Web. 20 Apr. 2015 from http://www.coveredbridgesite.com/ny/truss.html.
• Wikipedia contributors. "Gazela Bridge." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 7 Mar. 2014. Web. 20 Apr. 2015 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazela_Bridge.