Bridging the Education Gap

For the past 6 weeks, Tanner and Ashlyn have been working on a very intense project at school.  They were put into teams of 3 or 4 and each given specific tasks, such as: engineer, project manager, accountant, etc.  and then assigned with the task of building a bridge.  They studied bridge designs and had an impressive guest speaker come and speak to all of the 6th Graders about how the design/ build process works.  Who was that amazing speaker, oh, just the coolest dad in the world, Zac.  The twins have got pretty much 6th grade celebrity status now because their dad has an awesome job and he gave away lots of prizes.  Not to mention, he helped Ashlyn and Tanner draft a plan for their bridges on a drawing/ CAD type program, and they had realistic looking blueprints,  that also added to their popularity.  After many planning sessions, these kids were given a budget in which they had to buy all of their materials to make the bridge.  Tanner and Ashlyn even stayed after school many afternoons working on these beauties and taking advantage on the sales on toothpicks that took place after school.  At the end of the project, the bridges were tested to see which could hold the most weight.  The reigning record to beat was 53 pounds.

Here is Ashlyn's finished product:

Ashlyn with a teammate, Gracie- Their construction company was called T.A.G. Builders, an acronym for their names.

So proud of her finished product.

Tanner's Bridge-  His building team's motto was: "Bridges are our Quality"

I snuck in to school before class started to get a shot of the bridges before they were broken.  Tanner was mortified that someone might see him getting his picture taken, so he gave me exactly one shot and 5 seconds to get his picture.  This is the face I got: 

After the breaking, Ashlyn burst into the door after school yelling that she had beat the school record.  Her team has the new record at 57.5 lbs!!!  That's my girl.  In addition to their awesome design, those smart girls reinforced all of their beams with double the amounts of toothpicks and glue.  Tanner's team's bridge held 30 lbs., which was still quite impressive for the scope of the class.

Zac and I have enjoyed this project so much right along with these kids.  It is so fun to see them get a glimpse of how math and science actually work in a real industry.  Can't wait to see where these kids paths will take them.