Howdy, My name is Eduardo, I am in 9th Grade This is my submission for the "make it bridge" contest. This bridge is meant to showcase even though humanity is destroying animals homes we can make a difference. This bridge has evolved and changed to what it is now.

Step 1: Brainstorm

I was fascinated by arch bridges because of the natural curvature and strength of arches. The arches allow the bridge to have open space underneath meanwhile distributing the load evenly on each arch. This design started out using the engineering design process. The initial design was a sketch. This sketch was transformed into a bridge.

Step 2: CAD

I started by using a sketch and some ideas of what I wanted the bridge to look like. Each component was added and sized. Then went through multiple iterations of arches and designs as described in the 3rd step.

Step 3: Structrual Review

After designing what looked asthetically pleasing it was time to consider the structural flaws of this design. Lets look at the picture on the left. It has 3 arches combined together. The problem with this is that the 2 outer arches are supported by each other while the midddle arch has nothing to support it. That is why I redesigned the arches to create the design on the left. The differnce is the redesigned one on the right has 2 arches and a support beam coming down to transfer the load from the bridge to the ground.

Step 4: Prototyping

After finishing the design in cad I began prototyping the design. I used lightburn which is a laser cutting software. I formatted the design into parts and then cut them. After the parts were finshed being cut I assembled them using glue.

Step 5: Testing

I tested the finshed prototype to get an idea of how durable and strong the design is. This bridge weighs 0.152 lbs and held 82 lbs therefore it can hold over 500x its own weight.

Step 6: Esthetics

This bridge has a bench and windows on the walkway of the bridge. This allows people to absorb their surroundings and connect with nature. There is also bird habitats underneath the bridge. This allows people to observe the birds.

Step 7: Purpose

The purpose of this bridge is to provide a crossing not just for people to get soemwhere but to open people's eyes to the peace and beauty of nature. On this bridge there is multiple beams underneath. The purpose of these beams is to provide birds with habitats. Some bridges are not built for this but it ends up happening anyway. When this happens it makes maintenance a lot harder. This bridge embraces the birds.