The Clifton Suspension Bridge designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, spanning the Great Avon Gorge, at Bristol, was completed five years after his death in 1859. It was Brunel's first bridge design. Our teams of students are given a challenge to design and build their first 1.5 metre suspension bridge. Their bridge must be strong enough to carry two people; be attractive; be the cheapest bridge possible; and be as strong as possible and the bridge must be designed and built in three hours within strict criteria for the use and cost of materials. The students must use materials "purchased" at a "store". with a selection limited to: bamboo canes; plastic tubing; cellulose tape or balls of string using information from research materials and demonstration models, the programme identifies the specific components of the problem and presents the results of the student projects.
The I. K. Brunel Railroad Bridge weighing 1000 tons and 150 metres long was built in 1859 on the banks of the river Thames and then floated on barges to its permanent site. Brunel personally supervised this procedure communicating with large teams of workers. The problem presented to the students is to lift a 56kg concrete block off the floor and move it to another location. The materials provided were steel constructions kits including steel strips and the plates nuts and bolts to put it all together; fishing line with a breaking strength of 25 kg; pulleys and spindles, casters and tools. One team of students is given two hours to create a printed design that another group of students will build. It seems to be a choice between pulleys and levers and the students learn that communicating a design to those who will do the construction is just the first challenge in this project.
It's the 31st of January 1988 and exactly 130 years ago the biggest ship ever built was launched on the river Thames. The Great Easton, designed by Brunel, had to be launched sideways since the river was too narrow for the length of the ship to allow a normal head-forward launch. So the ship was built parallel to the bank. The hull weighed 12,000 tons and was the heaviest thing anyone had ever been called upon to lift. Constructed on two massive cradles, the problem confronting Brunel was controlling the great ship as it slid sideways into the water. He employed the principle of friction and used a slipway set at an angle of 1 in 12. But it got stuck! The problem confronting the students is to design and build a mechanism to lift a marble one-metre off the floor, transverse 30 centimetres, and then take 20 seconds to lower the marble to the floor. The materials available are; a variable electric power supply to drive a motor with a built-in gear box which can be switched on and off with a toggle switch or a pressure sensitive micro switch; a pulley; some string; a piece of cardboard; some plastic channelling and a length of wooden dowel. Everything can be joined together using glue, double-sided sticky tape, ordinary sticky tape, panel pins and pop rivets. The programme concludes with an explanation of how Brunel solved his problem, and the "test" of the student solutions. A group of teachers also tried their hand at solving this problem. Are they using the same materials?