ICE Bridge in Whitley Bay High School October 2014

In the third week of October 2014 the bridge activity was hosted in Whitley Bay High School. As always, it was visible how the students were becoming interested and excited about the activity as they saw the impressive size of the bridge and learned more about the importance of the civil engineering profession and the potential future employment opportunities from the preliminary talk. Understanding of the duties and responsibilities of civil engineers, the benefits of the job and the requirements that engineers have to satisfy to be competent and successful is encouraged by providing examples of well-known engineering projects and structures and the systems that have become an essential part of the civilised world. Our expert demonstrators often discuss the projects that they have worked on too! The activity is also a unique opportunity for the students to ask a wide range of questions related to the possible career paths, best engineering courses and how prepare for them.

The students in Whitley Bay High School worked excellently and can really be proud about the way they worked together in teams. Effective team work is one of the main requirements of the exercise given that each of the sessions, including the presentations, construction and deconstruction, normally takes around around 75 min.

ICE President's Visit

The ICE President Geoff French came to see the bridge in action on 1st April at Durham Highschool for girls. He was joined by Amy Wright, an old pupil of the school who was highly commended in this year's NCE Graduate Awards. Geoff shares our passion for engaging future engineers and we were very pleased to show him the work that we have been doing with the help of ICE graduates and students. You can see the ICE press release here.

With plenty of time scheduled and some very bright students, we were able to add in another activity to explain more about the day to day job of a civil engineer. The pupils were split into two groups and given large maps of Durham city centre and asked to suggest locations for a new bridge. They had to think about where it would be needed and hazards that might be encountered. There were some really good points raised which were shared with everyone at the end of the exercise.


Now for the fun part! Every session went very smoothly with some excellent displays of teamwork. The President even got roped into some heavy lifting and volunteered to be the first test subject when the scaffolding was removed.
A big thank you to the school, all the helpers visitors across the day and particularly to NCE for the photos (much better than our usual lot).
Please let us know if you would be interested in volunteering. More photos below!

Fordley Primary School

This week we were in Dudley with the North Tyneside Education Business Partnership again, building the bridge with year 3/4's and 5/6's. They showed some excellent teamwork in quite large groups. Half term is now upon us and the bridge is out of action until March so we're going to explain one of the most important parts of the bridge, the deck!

Pin

Scaffolding 

Deck

To put the deck up, every child has a particular job: they work in pairs to carry a piece of the deck, some are in charge of the pins used to hold the pieces together and some make sure that the scaffolding is in the right place. Everything must happen in the right order and be dismantled in the exact opposite way.


1. A pair of pins are put into place on the base plate of the bridge. 

2. Slide the piece of deck onto the pins. You can see the hollow metal tubes to the side where they slide together.

3. Before the children let go of the deck, there must be a piece of scaffolding under it to make sure the bridge is supported as it is being constructed (we use blocks of foam).

4. The two middle piece are different to the rest. One side has in-built pins that slide out to join the two halves together.

5. Once all the pieces are fully joined up, the cables can be attached.

Greenfields Primary School

This week the bridge was out in conjunction with North Tyneside Education Business Partnership. The project has arranged for ICE as well as several other businesses and organisations to promote various employment options that are available to the children in the future. All of the year 3/4 and 5/6 classes were well behaved and excellent at gradually tightening the cables so the bridge was level.

This blog will look at the a-frames of the bridge, from which the cables are suspended. Its quite clear where they get their name!

As mentioned in the previous post, there is a colour-coding system to ensure the longest cables are attached to the highest part of the frame.

The frames are bolted to a board at the beginning of assembly so the children can reach to attach the cables. It pivots around this bolt as it is lifted into place and another is used to secure it in the upright position.

The frames take the compressive load due to gravity that is acting on the bridge down to the ground. The children often understand this load path instinctively so it is important to reinforce the physics behind this and explain that they have just completed their first bit of structural engineering!

Redcar

This week the bridge was at Sacred Heart RC Secondary School in Redcar after a trip to Redcar  and Cleveland College the week before. Around 120 Year 8 students got the chance to learn more about Civil Engineering and where their education could take them. There were really good displays of team work getting the bridge up and down in some of the fastest times we've ever seen. We also had a lot of good questions, leading to a very enjoyable few days.

In each post we're going to tell you a bit more about an element of the bridge and what it can teach us. This week it's the turn of the cables.

You can't have a cable-stayed bridge without cables: they stop the deck of the bridge from collapsing.

This bridge has 32 cables of different lengths so we use a colour-coding system to make sure the right ones are attached in the right place.

The children instinctively know that wobbly cables won't support the bridge so we tighten them up with the adjusters. After testing the bridge, we discuss the forces that act on the structure and in the cables. It is important to make the link between this and the subjects that are involved in calculating the size and strength of the cables: physics and maths.

Hello!

With the start of the new school year, the Bridges to Schools project was up and running again. The latest school to receive a visit from the bridge was Longbenton Community College from 9th-12th December 2013.

Other schools involved were St Stephens, The Melrose Centre and Holystone.

For more information about the bridge see the links on the right and the video below.