Class News
Term 1
Year 5 Build Bridges!
This week, Year 5 have been real engineers for the day, exploring how shape and structure make bridges strong enough to carry a load.
We started by investigating beam and arch bridges, predicting whether a simple card bridge could hold a weight, then testing it to destruction! The children worked out how to reinforce their designs, discovering how arches, lamination and corrugation all add strength.
Next came spaghetti truss bridges — a brilliant (and brittle!) way to explore how triangles distribute weight evenly across a structure. Groups built, tested and improved their designs, then moved on to building sturdier truss bridges from lollipop sticks, carefully gluing them into triangular frames.
Throughout the unit, children evaluated their own and each other's bridges, thinking about appearance, strength, accuracy and finish — just like real structural engineers would.
See our photo gallery above for some of their brilliant creations!