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.