Structures (Bridge & Tower Builder)
Design a bridge and stress-test it under load, or build a tower and crush-test it — then watch it hold, or crumble. Engineering, physics, and problem-solving in one.
Students design a truss bridge, then put it under load and watch the physics play out — members stretch and compress, color-shift under stress, and fail if the design can't take it. It turns engineering iteration into a game: design, test, learn, redesign.
Built-in challenges, class leaderboards, and a teacher gradebook make it easy to run as a competition — designs are ranked on efficiency, rewarding the bridge that holds its load at the lowest cost.
Tower Builder is the other half of the set: students build a lattice tower on a limited footprint, then a press plate lowers onto it and the crush load climbs in pounds until the tower holds — or lets go. Same steel, same joints, same costs as the bridge, so what a class learns on one carries straight over to the other.
How a class uses it
- Run the Bridge Challenge: everyone gets the same span and load, and the class leaderboard tracks whose design does it most efficiently — and at the lowest cost.
- Teach forces by watching them: tension and compression are color-coded live under load.
- Pair with a physical build — design and test digitally first, giving students confidence in their design before investing the time to construct it from classroom materials.
- Run the Tower Challenge: same footprint, same target height, same load for everyone — the leaderboard ranks the tower that survives the crush test at the lowest cost.
See it in action
Put Structures in front of your class
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