Left: Blendon winners Joey Hatfield, Quentin Sheets and Landon Gibbs – 583 cm. Right: Walnut Springs winners Ben Mitchell, Drew Shenberger and Grant Schneider – 254 cm.
Design Challenges are in full swing for many middle school advanced science classes. The Newspaper Bridge Design Challenge took place in March for several seventh graders. The Design Challenge is a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) initiative where teams of students were asked to build bridges out of masking tape and newspapers to demonstrate the effect of weight or another force at a distance from a pivot or a support point (torque). In addition, it makes clear the need for the upward support of the bridge to counteract the downward force of the load. Students further develop an experiential understanding of how structures are designed to bear loads and downward pulls with gravity.
Blendon Middle School students Joey Hatfield, Quentin Sheets, Landon Gibbs built a bridge that spanned 583 cm. Patrick Schubert taught them. Walnut Springs Middle School students (taught by Phil Carney) Ben Mitchell, Drew Shenberger, Grant Schneider built a bridge spanning 254 cm.
The design challenge was supported by the Science and Gifted Education Departments.