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ENTRY 5 Today we did our demonstration for the class of how a suspension bridge works to distribute the live load and dead load it has to support. It took five of us and ten feet of strong rope. Ms. T. brought in the rope .We took the rope and passed it over Jose and Richard's shoulders . Ms. T. gave them some folded up newspapers to put under the rope so it wouldn't cut into their shoulders and hurt. They were representing the two big stone towers of the Brooklyn Bridge. Then Lucas and Andrew wanted to be the anchorages of the bridge where the cables are held down. So they held the ends of the rope and they knelt down so the ends of the ropes which represented the cables of the bridge, were down near the ground .When I pushed down on the rope in between Jose and Richard, the towers, I represented the dead load of the roadway and live load of the cars and all the people. The rope represented the cable, and it was in tension. Lucas and Andrew said they could feel the tension of the rope in their arms when they acted like the anchorages, and Jose and Richard said they felt a lot of pushing, or compression in their shoulders when they were the towers. Then Ms. T. asked Andrew what might happen if he, the anchorage, let go of the rope. So we tried it . I almost fell down! Jose and Richard fell towards each other. It was just like the picture in The Art of Construction! Without tension in the cable, the whole bridge was no longer in equilibrium and so it collapsed! Then Ms. T gave the class a quiz on our lesson and everybody except Roland passed. Back to the top | Back to KidBridges Activities |
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