Who was Leonardo da Vinci?
FUN FACTS
Leonardo Da Vinci was born on April 15th, 1452 in Florence, Italy, and died May 2nd, 1519 at the age of 67.
He was the illegitimate child of Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, a Florentine notary, and Caterina, a peasant.
Many of Leonardo da Vinci’s machines have since been built and tested, to varying levels of success.
Leonardo da Vinci had dyslexia, when he made notes on his inventions it was all written in reverse, which made it hard for others to dig through his notes and steal his ideas.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was a painter, architect, inventor, and student of all things scientific. His natural genius crossed so many disciplines that he epitomized the term “Renaissance man.” Today he remains best known for his art, including two paintings that remain among the world’s most famous and admired, Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.
In 1502
Leonardo da Vinci sketched out a design for what would have been the world's longest bridge at the time -- 280 meters (918.6 feet).
His sketch of his bridge
Although the bridge itself was never built, engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have tested the design to see if it would work. BELOW
The results of their work were presented in October of 2019 at the International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures conference in Barcelona, Spain, according to a release by the university.
Da Vinci submitted his innovative bridge sketch when Sultan Bayezid II, ruler of the Ottoman Empire from 1481 to 1512, put out a request for bridge designs that could span across the Golden Horn. This natural river estuary separated the cities of Galata and Istanbul. Da Vinci's proposal was not selected. Now, a cable-stayed bridge is in place. MIT engineers studied his drawing, as well as the materials he would have had available, and construction conditions at the time. They built a scale model to test its stability and how it might react to different conditions.
Missouri has 10,384 bridges – the sixth most in the nation.
More than 900 of those bridges are in poor condition and 1,131 are weight restricted.
413 fall into both categories.
Source: https://www.modot.org/focus-bridges
The Design Process
YOUR GOAL:
To build a pencil bridge that will hold 10 pounds.
You will start testing your bridge at 1 pound, then 3 pounds, then 5 pounds, 8 pounds, and finally 10 pounds.
STEP 1: IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM (1 1/2 minutes)
Understanding the problem paves the way for solving it. If you just have pencils, there is not enough friction between the pencils to hold them in place. You have to use rubber bands on the spots that the pencils touch each other.
Some pencils will need to have 3 locations with rubber bands wrapped, some just need two. For the pencils going on the sides of the bridge, they need 3 rubber bands on each pencil, and those going across the sides just need 2 rubber bands on each.
To have a bridge, you need a minimum 8 pencils with 3 rubber bands, and 4 pencils with 2 rubber bands.
The longer the bridge you want to build, the more pencils you need, and the more challenging to build the bridge and to keep it up.
The longer the bridge you want to build, the more pencils you need, and the more challenging to build the bridge and to keep it up.
STEP 2: BRAINSTORM (1 1/2 minutes)
Coming up with many possible solutions is a powerful way to begin a project. Let's say that you didn't have any rubber bands and only pencils. What else could you use besides rubber bands? or What could you do to the pencils?
STEP 3: DESIGN (1 minute)
Now it's time to choose the best solution and plan on how to build your Da Vinci Pencil Bridge.
NOTE: When your teammates disagree on something, discuss possible solutions for moving the team forward.
STEP 4: BUILD, TEST, EVALUATE, and REDESIGN (10 minutes)
Once you settle on a design, then it's time to build, test, evaluate, and redesign it. Of course, things don't always work as planned. Make sure to write down your testing results and figure out how to redesign and make improvements.
TEST RESULTS: (1 pound)
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TEST RESULTS: (3 pounds)
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TEST RESULTS: (5 pounds)
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TEST RESULTS: (8 pounds)
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TEST RESULTS: (10 pounds)
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Bridge Building Challenges and Tips
This is not a one-person job. You need at least 4 hands to work together. The two persons working together need be in sync really well. For this reason, this is a great team building activity.
It is critical to keep the bridge balanced between both sides all the time. To do that, you want to keep the pencils on the sides as straight as possible. When there are times that they need be slightly angled inwards or outwards, you must make sure both sides are angled symmetrically at about the same angles.
The engineering design of the bridge is pretty robust. If it is a little unbalanced between the two sides, the bridge may still stand. However, the mis-alignment effect can add up quickly. You want to keep both sides symmetrically aligned to the best you can, all the time.