Building a Spanning Structure

Important for architects is to cooperate in groups. Today's task ask us to work effectively in groups by knowing our own strengths to come to a resolution which everybody in the group would support.

We had to create a spanning structure which goes from one table top to the other while touching the floor in maximum two places. The bridge should be high enough so that a folded table could passes below.

In the end the bridge would get tested by a car driving from one side to the other safely.

The materials were 30 bamboo bars, cardboards, masking tape and elastics.

We started with sketching our ideas on a paper sheet so everybody in the group knew about our plans and also that we were able to spread the work.
While we were discussing our ideas we were talking separately and everybody listened to other ideas so we got along with each other well and we came up with a structure for our bride pretty fast.

Our idea was to connect the bamboo bars with masking tape to create an arch which would connect the two tables. To make it more stable we were thinking of crossing two bamboo bar arches and also fix them together with masking tape.
It was difficult to attach the bamboo bars on the table so they would have the same high.

After we had managed that we attached the cardboards on top of the bamboo bars to have a ground for the bridge. We measured the wide so the car would be able to cross our bridge.
To design a better looking bridge we used the structure of a hourglass shape by having bigger ends and a smaller top.

At the same time some people of the group cut triangles out of the cardboards to design the handrail.

After finishing the structure and the triangles we put the pieces randomly together so it would look fancy and edgy.
The problem we had at first was that our triangle handrail did not stick to the basement of our bridge but as soon as more triangles were added the structure it turned out well.

In the end we painted our bridge in different colours so it became an eye catcher and protrude from the others work.

Our final spanning structure was stable enough for a car to drive from one side to the other safely.
I like how we worked together as a team because everybody had a task and was helping out the others if they needed a hand. In addition I think that our bridge has a simple but also stable structure but is because of the colourful triangle shaped handrail nifty and special.

Furthermore I enjoyed working in a team because you get to hear others ideas and points of views so you come to a great and maybe different expected resolution.