This week in Practical Science the students have been exploring cyclical design improvement by making bamboo bridges to span a 1 metre gap which will be tested to destruction in a competition between 2 teams at the end of the week.
The students have been given safety training in using craft knives, pliers and saws, and their given materials have been 100 split bamboo garden canes, duct tape, and polyester string. They have been taught briefly about the tensile and compressive forces in a loaded structure and the use of parabolas and triangles as load distributing shapes.
Apart from this they are taught some basic fixing techniques for using the duct tape with the bamboo, and shown some examples of bridge designs involving triangles and parabolas. They are not given direct guidance in what to make or how to make it, but guided with directed questions and analogies.
The emphasis of the course is on developing independent problem solving thinking skills and initiative.
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