River Crossing Pedestrian Bridge for Make It Bridge Design Contest

Hello, My name is Johnathan and I am in 9th grade. This is my submission for the Make It Bridge Student Design Challenge. The pedestrian bridge that I designed features elements of nature as well as creating a safe space for pedestrians to cross the Des Moines River without having to cross bridges with lots of car traffic. In this Project, I will show you my thought process behind my design and how to design your own bridge as well!

Supplies

In this project you will need:

• A laptop/computer
• Fusion 360 or another 3d CAD program such as Tinker cad
• Google maps or another map website
• paper
• pencil
• Your brain for imagination

Step 1: Define a Problem

In many metropolitan areas there is lots of traffic but not many safe pedestrian only travel areas to keep people safe. My goal in designing this bridge was to provide pedestrians with a safe way to cross a river/travel around a city.

Step 2: Pick a Location

The location in Des Moines that I picked(circled in red) is a great place for a pedestrian bridge due to the high volume of motor traffic on bridges surrounding the area. This area also has many great places around the city to eat along with many main attractions and landmarks that make it a place with lots of pedestrian traffic as well.

Step 3: Brainstorm Possible Solutions/find Inspiration

There are many types of bridges that could be used to design a bridge such as suspension, arch, beam, truss, and many others.

I took lots of inspiration from the Peace Bridge in Calgary, Canada(as pictured above) due to the beautiful architecture and all of the glass letting natural light in.

Take time to find inspiration from lots of different bridges and let your creativity flow with the design of your bridge.

Step 4: Criteria and Constraints

Next you will need to find out what requirements your bridge would need to meet.

One of the main requirements that your bridge will have to meet is being long enough to cross the river, road, or other landform that your are crossing. In the picture above I found that my bridge needed to be 120 meters long. I found that out by using the distance key (the red circle in the bottom right corner) to measure the width of the river or whatever I needed my bridge to cross(the red line in the middle).

If this bridge were to be built in real life here are some of the criteria and constraints(requirements) that it would have to meet:

Criteria:

• Being long enough to cross the river(or other landform)
• Being able to support the weight of pedestrians

Constraints:

• How much time it take to build the bridge
• How much money the bridge costs to build

Step 5: Start a Rough Draft

Take some time to sketch out some bridges that will meet the requirements but also are fun and exciting to look at. You don't need to spend a ton of time on this step because you are just getting your thoughts down on paper.

Once you have all of your ideas down select one to design. If you want to change something later don't worry because this is just a rough draft and you can change it at any time.

Step 6: Make the Base(substructure)

Once you have an idea jump into your favorite CAD software and start designing! My favorite is Fusion 360 because it it easy to use and it has a ton of great features!

You should start with making the base of the bridge(what's going to hold all of the weight)

In my design(above) I went with an arch bridge.

Step 7: Make the Top(superstructure)

Next, design what will go on top of the base. Have fun and make it cool to look at! Use your imagination!

In my design I added a roof so that when it rains the people walking on the bridge would not get wet. I also added a glass railing.

Step 8: Add Final Details

Finally add your final details to make your whole bridge come together and look amazing!

I added some planters underneath glass sections in the roof so that I could have some plants growing on the bridge fusing nature with my bridge. I also cut out a section of the glass roof in the middle so that the plants could soak up rain water while the pedestrians still stay dry under the glass section of the roof!

Step 9: You're Finished!/Conclusion

Yeah! You have completed this project! With your newly created bridge design you could make a physical prototype or make even more improvements too it! Have some fun with it!

I had a great time with this project and I hope you did as well! I hope this project helped you to make an improvement somewhere in your community and helped you to learn something new just like I did. Thanks for following along and have a great day!