Mrs Childs (Head of Year 6) and Mrs Inkson (Year 5 Teacher)

As part of STEM week, Year 5 and Year 6 enjoyed investigating different bridges and designs.

Bridges are everywhere and are often a feat of engineering to span large distances. Engineers are challenged to make structures, which are strong, light and efficient. They used triangulation, suspension and arches to achieve this.

The first task was to build the longest bridge possible from a single A4 sheet of paper. This led to interesting designs involving folding, cutting and extending the structures. The longest span was 35cm!

The girls then explored how arches affected bridges, testing strength with cubes. One card arch increased the strength of a bridge dramatically - more than adding additional layers.

One fascinating bridge design is the Mathematical Bridge in Cambridge. The mathematical bridges in school were made with straight wooden sticks and were self-supporting.

It was amazing to see the arch of the bridge forming from the straight pieces.