Structures

Essential Questions:

• How can geometry affect the distribution of force?
• Why are safe, stable and strong not sufficient for designing structures?
• How can the motion of an object change how forces are applied on a structure?

Students will be able to answer the following questions:

1. When does a support structure actually add support or additional weight?
2. Would I drive my family over this bridge in 25 years?

Students should be able to:

• Distinguish between civil engineering and architecture.

• Use calculations to determine tensile and compressive forces in order to construct stable structures
• Optimize size and strength factors in designing the test ROV

Students will know: 

• How to represent forces with vectors
• How to calculate forces acting on sections of the bridge
• That trade-offs between distribution of weight on the ROV and size limitations of ROV will affect their bridge design.
• How to build a bridge
• How to relay their knowledge to architecture students in different contexts.
• How to coordinate between bridge designers/builders and architects