It's hard to believe that three weeks of Peninsula Bridge have already gone by. As a returning TA, I've had a ton of fun reuniting with past students, as well as meeting all of the new students. These three weeks have been a whirlwind of class chants (Stanford vs. Cal), advisory dances, University Day, Back-to-Bridge Night, bridge building with DPR, and Career Day. The event I'd like to focus on for this blog entry is the bridge building with DPR Construction, a tradition that all of the eighth graders participated in on Wednesday and Thursday. Armed with just Popsicle sticks and hot-glue guns, the eighth graders divided into groups and set off on building the best bridges they could. The challenge was to build a bridge that could withstand forty pounds!
After a day and a half of building (which included constant discussions about design and constant gluing), the students were able to see their bridges tested. A metal chain was wrapped around a plastic car and attached to the students' bridges. Then, a bucket was attached to the other end. A crowd gathered full of students, CSUS faculty, and eighth grade TAs as the helpers from DPR slowly filled the buckets with water. I could feel the anticipation in the air as the first group's bridge was tested. Cheers escaped from the eighth graders as the bridge withstood the forty pounds of water. The bucket full of water pulled down on the bridge, but the bridge showed no sign of strain.
After this first test, all of the other groups were excited to see their own bridges meet the same fate; in their minds, there was no way their bridges wouldn't withstand the weight as well. As the bridges continued to be tested, however, only one other bridge survived the weight. Other bridges cracked and shattered into pieces as the crowd shouted in awe. It was amazing to see how creative the students were, all of them creating different designs and using different strategies. In this friendly competition, I saw groups of eighth graders unite and work together - teamwork at its best. Whether students were bubbling with excitement over their strong bridges or their broken bridges, the two days of bridge building were a success - hot-glue gun burns aside! I am already looking forward to next week: Spirit Week!