My name is Maximilian Shabatayev, I live in New York and attend Staten Island Technical High School. I am 15 years old and am a rising junior.

For this project, I decided to create a vertical lift bridge with piers. When I was coming up with ideas for this project I really liked the idea of having piers that can be used as a hang out spot. I liked the idea of it being a spot where anyone can hang out, from little kids, to teens, to adults. This helps connect the community and bring people together. It also strengthens social infrastructure.

Supplies

Autodesk Inventor
Autodesk Infraworks
Google Earth
Unreal Engine

Step 1: Scope Out the Area

The goal of this project was to strengthen civic life and social infrastructure, bring people together across lines of difference, and to increase accessibility. When I was looking for a place to build my bridge, I noticed that there wasn't any reasonable way to get from Staten Island to New Jersey on foot. So I decided to build a bridge connecting the two. This would bring people together from multiple cities, strengthen social infrastructure, and increase accessibility. It was the perfect spot for a pedestrian bridge.

When I first found this idea, I was still unsure on exactly how and where the bridge would connect to both sides. This is where I found Google Earth and Unreal Engine most helpful. On Google Earth I was able to look around the area and decide exactly which 2 points My bridge would connect. However, I found it difficult to really understand the scale of things in Google Earth, so I used the Google Tiles API to recreate an accurate version of my build site in Unreal Engine. This way I was able to really look at my build site without having to travel there. To me this was a very useful tool because at the end I was also able to walk my bridge and see if there were any edits I wanted to make.

Step 2: A Big Problem

A big problem with building a normal pedestrian bridge in a place like this is that it needs to have a way for ships to pass. The waterway that my bridge crosses is often used to transport cargo and for tourists on boat tours. This meant that I had to find a way to allows ships to pass. After looking into various ways that this problem could be solved, I settled on a vertical lift bridge.

Step 3: Research and Concept

When I was researching vertical lift bridges, I discovered that there is a lot of ways a vertical lift bridge could work. One style that caught my eye has a large bolt at the bottom of the bridge that would spin inside of a nut attached to the ground. This would cause the bridge to move up and down.

I really liked this concept, but at this point I was still unsure on how the mechanism really worked. So, I started researching more vertical lift bridges, looking at their blueprints, and looking up any other questions I had. After this I learned that most of these bridges shared one thing in common. They all had a rail with wheels on 3 sides. This was interesting to me because I realized that this is also how roller-coasters work, they too use a rail and wheels on multiple sides to make the track.

Step 4: Bridge Designs

I knew that my bridge was going to have to be very strong due to its large size, so I had to research what kind of bridges I would be able to make. The only type of bridge that would seem to work for my bridge was a truss bridge. However, there are many types of truss bridges. I settled on a Pratt bridge due to a balance of structural integrity and looks.

Step 5: Start Building the Bridge

I started out by creating the general shape of the bridge. This took me several attempt to make the bridge look how I wanted. I learned a lot from building this bridge and definitely feel a lot more confident in inventor after this project. The design of the bridge was meant to look like a bridge but not have to feel like on when you are on it. The bridge is very wide, giving a lot of space for people to walk and be able to stay on for extended periods of time, making it feel almost as if it was part of the piers. The bridge also has the spots for the 3 wheels, that I talked about earlier, on all four corners.

Step 6: Building the Pillars/supports and Wheels

I decided to create an outside casing for the tracks so that it would look nicer. I looked at a few various designs and sketched them out on paper, but I decided to go with this tower type thing with a curved top. I also made the track itself. I started by finding out where the wheels would go and then I created indents for them so that they would not be able to move side to side or slip out. I for the tracks, I made 2 kinds of wheels, the bigger, slimmer ones go on the side and the smaller one on the front.

Step 7: Building the Mechanism

The mechanism of the bridge consists of a bolt that is spun by a motor that is on the bottom side of the bridge. The bolt is attached to a nut at the bottom. When the bolt spins it moves the bridge up or down depending on which way its spinning.

Step 8: Assembling the Bridge

The next step was to assemble the bridge. I started by putting the rails and towers together. I lined them up and constrained them to the bottom plane. Next, I put all the wheels on the bridge. I used offset planes to make sure the wheels were centered on their axles. After that, I attached the raising and lowering mechanism to the bridge and constrained the nut to the bottom plane.

Step 9: Animating the Bridge

Once I had assembled the bridge, I was curious to see the bridge work. So I created an animation using Inventor Studio. This was interesting to learn and although it had its rough spots it was overall and fan and useful learning experience for me.

Step 10: Placing the Bridge

I also wanted to add a place for people to hang out to make it a more people friendly area and not just a bridge. On one side I added hotdog carts, fruit stands, drink shops, and benches. On the other side I added a coffee shop, bike racks, a small playground, pool tables, ping pong tables, and foosball tables. This strengthens civic life and social infrastructure in the community. I also added lamps to keep the place lit at night, and vegetation to make it look more lively. I really

Step 11: Showing It Off

To show off my finished bridge, I decided to create an animation in Infraworks. This was a fun process and I think is a really cool way to show off the final bridge with its piers.

Step 12: Conclusion

In conclusion, I think that this project was really fun and I learned a lot about various software such as Inventor, Infraworks, Unreal Engine, and Google APIs. The bridge turned out well in my opinion and the piers