Mouchel Parkman Bridge Project 2007

• More Photos

AKA The Godge Bodge

I was part of the Godalming College team who entered the Mouchel Parkman Bridge Building Challenge at the Surrey Science Festival in June 2007. We didn't win, but it was good fun. I can, however, claim that we came second and the winning team came second to last.

The team and the judges! Top: Me, Richard, Adrian (judge), Simon, Chris. Bottom: David, Katharine, Dominic (Mouchel Parkman guy). We're hardly all looking our best, but it's the only photo with everyone in.

The Brief

We had to design and build a scale 1:10 model of a bridge which would span a theoretical 24 metre wide tidal river. The deflection on the model could be no more than 6mm, and we could not use any pillars in the river.

Our Designs

After varied doodles we decided an arch bridge would be much more fun than anything else feasible we could think of. Richard knocked up a 3D model in Google Sketchup, and I drew a handful of confusing diagrams.

Construction!

The week before the festival was due to start we realised we had a problem; we didn't have a bridge. 10:30 PM, on the day before the bridge was due into college, we finished. A mere 4 sessions of building and we had bodged together a bridge!

There were only actually two teams who finished bridges in the end, and apparently neither of us filled the initial brief very well, but they'd filled more of it as we had completely failed to mathematically calculate a theoretical deflection of the bridge. Still, we all enjoyed ourselves and the bridge successfully managed to hold about 8 people.

We also got to go on Concord!