STEM
Bridge Building
Teams design, build and test bridges made from lollipop sticks and hot glue, then load them until they break.
What happens
Working in teams, participants design and build a bridge using lollipop sticks and hot glue, applying basic engineering principles as they go. Once built, each bridge is loaded with weight, gradually, until it fails.
It’s a practical way into ideas like tension, compression and structural strength. Rather than being told how bridges work, teams find out by testing their own design to destruction, then comparing what held and what didn’t.
Benefits
Testing to failure makes engineering concepts tangible instead of abstract, and because every bridge eventually breaks, it takes the pressure off getting a ‘perfect’ design and puts it on understanding why a structure held up as long as it did.
The details
- Who it's for
- Ideal for ages 8+, younger participants welcome with adult supervision.
What people get out of it
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Engineering by trial
Teams sketch, build and then load-test their own bridge design.
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Real structural concepts
Tension and compression explained through a bridge that's about to snap, not a diagram.
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Friendly competition
Teams find out, for fun, whose design holds the most weight.