Recently thirty three senior Technical Education pupils visited the new Forth Bridge Education Centre at South Queensferry, Edinburgh. This trip was organised to let pupils experience a “live” major civil engineering project while also helping to stimulate interest in design, engineering and architecture.

The group were initially given an informative presentation on the bridge construction where they learned about engineering principles and logistical information regarding the management of a large, international project. After the presentation pupils were then given a guided tour of the bridge construction site to give a clear perspective of the size and scale of this project.

Finally, all pupils were given a design challenge to manufacture a bridge structure from wooden dowel rod and elastic bands. The bridge spanned 7 metres in length and over 2 metres in height. (see photographs) Auchinleck Academy pupils excelled in this task and produced a high quality bridge structure within the given time constraints.

An interesting and enjoyable experience for all.