Fermilab LInC Online

The Bridges of Adams County

Unit Description Before LInC

This project was initiated last year in the Principles of Technology class as an adjunct to the Carpentry curriculum. The project was first introduced with the Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster video, and then the regional bridge building competition was announced as a possible goal. Because of the lack of materials to build the bridge, only scraps of balsa taken from the regional competition trashcans were available for the students to use.
No bridge building software was available last year, nor was there a coherent way to integrate technology or use of the Internet into the project. The teacher introduced the vocabulary of bridge building, a handout, which further elucidated the terms, was given to the student teams, and the construction began with only a rough sketch being created by the student teams.
The Carpentry Instructor seemed uninterested but offered assistance from time to time.
Students were not involved with the process of creating the assessment rubric, or in determining the direction of the project to any extent.