Evaluate and adapt your rough sketches (30 minutes)
Your team will now prepare a tender. To start, choose the best design in your team. This means you need to choose one sketch from all the rough sketches. To help you choose, answer the following questions:
Questions | Yes | No |
Does the structure allow people to move across the river safely? | ||
Does the structure protect people from crocodiles? | ||
Does the structure allow a group to cross safely? | ||
Will the structure be safe when the river floods? | ||
Is the structure durable, and will it last a long time without breaking? | ||
Is the structure made of the right materials? Remember that the bridge could be in constant contact with water and should not rust. | ||
Will the structure withstand both static and dynamic forces? | ||
Will the structure be very expensive to build? Remember that you are building it for people, not cars. | ||
Will the structure be expensive to maintain? | ||
Does the structure damage the environment? |
If the sketches do not meet these requirements, adapt them until they do.
Draw your adapted sketches in the space on the next page. This is your final solution and it will form the basis of your working drawing.
Make your sketches here:
Design brief with specifications andconstraints (30 minutes)
Write a design brief that explains what you want the structure to do. Your design brief has to list the specifications and constraints for your design. Use the open space below to write your design brief.
Remember that specifications are things that your design must have and constraints are things that your design cannot have. The specifications and the constraints are usually listed in the tender notice.
Specifications could include the following:
- The bridge has to be completed within a certain time.
- The bridge has to be built according to budget, including all labour costs.
- The bridge has to help the community. For example, you can employ local people to work on the bridge and train them while they work on the project. That way, they will have good skills that will help them to find work when this project ends.
- The bridge has to be user-friendly for disabled and older people.
Constraints could include the following:
- Time and cost constraints. For example, the building process should not take longer than a specific amount of time, and should not cost more than a certain amount.
- The bridge cannot exclude wheelchair users.
- The bridge cannot employ more than a certain number of people from another area.
- Women should not be prohibited from working on the project.
Total [10]
Write your design brief in the space below and on the next page:
Draw a flow chart (30 minutes)
Do you remember what a flow chart is? A flow chart is a summary of all the steps you have to follow to plan or make something. It is a visual way to show the steps in a planning or making process.
“Visual” means something that you can see.
A flow chart is a summary, so use short sentences or just keywords to write down your steps. Then draw a box around each step and an arrow between the steps.
A keyword is a word that can replace a whole sentence. Example: for “Make a list of tasks’, just write list’
Look at the example of a flow chart below. Now draw a flow chart of how you will build your bridge. Do this on the next page.
Think of the very first thing you will have to do, and start from there. For example: will you measure the river first; will you buy the materials first; will you train your staff first; or will you draw up your budget first?
You can change your flow chart later when you make the model of your bridge. Engineers and technologists often change their plans while they work on a project.
