Workshop Activities The material used for the beams is pinewood, which is 1200 mm in length, 35mm in depth and width. The material used for bracing is plywood, which is flexible due to its main feature. The tools used to assemble the bridge are baAery drills, nails and saw. Figure 1 presents the overview of the bridge in the workshop acDviDes. The design aims to take as much load as possible. As Figure 2 shows, the load is equally transferred to each beam of the bridge. This means that each beam is taking one-‐third of the load. Besides, the bracing of the bridge helps to take as much load as possible. When the beams begin to deform, the bracing will stabilize the beams by reducing the degree of deformaDon.
Figure 1 Figure 2
Workshop Activities Expected weak point:
During the installaDon of the bridge, a crack happened at the end of bracing which is aAached to the beam. Therefore, another nail had to be bolted into the beam to aAach the bracing to the beam. This will affect the overall performance of the pinewood, since the integrity of the pinewood is damaged.(Please refer to Figure 3 & 4)
Crack
Figure 3 Figure 4
Workshop Activities Outcome:
The bridge is capable of taking loads. However, the cracking happened at the knots in the pinewood rather than the expected weak spot. The knots in the pinewood caused the slope of the gran, which leads to the cracking in the pinewood due to the irregular load transferred in the pinewood. (Please refer to Figure 5 & 6 ) Slope of Grain
Figure 6
Figure 5