A Bridge for the Ages (and Kansas Nature)

Hi there, my name is Travis Dalton, though legally it is currently otherwise. I will be entering 11th grade next month. This is my submission for the "Make It Bridge" contest.

This bridge is meant to metaphorically (and hopefully literally) bridge the gap between the older and the younger generations, while supporting and celebrating the natural wildlife here in Lawrence KS.

To make the physical model:

• Popsicle Sticks
• Hot and Cold Glue
• Paint and Paint Brushes
• Colored Pencils
• Paper
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Decorative foliage (Flowers and the grass flooring)
• Plastic Toys (Adult bison, dogs, calves)

After hearing about this project, the first thing I did was look to the bridges we have around my hometown of Lawrence to see how I would design my own. One that came to mind was the one on Yankee Tank Creek as it was a pedestrian bridge. The build of this bridge would be how I later modeled my own, trusting it's structural integrity.

Aside from the basic structure of the bridge, I knew I wanted to include an aspect of community art, and something that would serve a functional purpose to the ecosystem.

With those two goals in mind I was inspired by the community donated tiles decorating the check-out desk at Pet World. Pet World is a local pet supplies shop in Lawrence, after a devastating fire the re-building process got support from our Art And Community center, where children ages 4-13 decorated tiles that then were put into the re-built shop. The community supporting itself is essential in any town, and definitely something I would want to encourage with this hypothetical bridge being built.

The second goal I found could be served by a project of my own made not too long ago. I had constructed and painted a garden box for my grandparents to cover a concrete step leading to their door. While this one was placed there to hold garden flowers, one of a similar make could just as easily support Kansas wildflowers as well, helping our local pollinators thrive.

From this, a rough plan was drawn up that would serve as the blueprint going forwards.

The next step is deciding where the bridge would be, and how those art tiles, and any other decoration would be created.

For the location I decided on the crosswalk of Massachusetts Street in-between the East and West sides of South Park. South Park itself has a lot of history, being established in 1906, the East side has a gazebo that President Theodor Roosevelt gave a speech in. The West side of the park is where the Parks and Rec. building is, as well as a decently large playground. Overall South Park is a lovely spot for recreation of all kinds, and where the majority of events are held, with Massachusetts leading to downtown.

With this location already being such an important spot for the city of Lawrence, creating a bridge to create easier walking access between the East and West symbolically represents uniting the older and newer generations, through the two sides holding one for innovation and the other a deep history.

Aside from the symbolic gesture, we can promote the literal joining of the different generations through the art tiles. With the support of the Art Community Center, an event can be held inviting all ages to paint tiles for this new bridge, there would also be a specific out reach program to those in senior citizen centers, and the Boys And Girls Club which is for kids ages 6-18.

Any additional art of the bridge would be done by volunteers from our two colleges in Lawrence: KU and Haskell University.

Art from those of the elderly age bracket (60+) would be placed on the East side, while those from ages 4-14 on the West. Any art in between those ages would be placed on the flower boxes that line the inside of the bridge, creating a timeline of human life as you walk along it.

The art for the tiles would be themed around Kansas wildlife.

I also wanted to include our state animal, the Bison, and it's calf called "red dogs" as statues, placed at the East and West ends respectively. However I do not think these statues would be community projects, rather paid for outsourced work from local professionals.

Throughout the construction process I lacked any way to specifically measure, so all measurements were made with the rough assumption that a bison is about the size of a car. So with that I looked at Google images of the South Park road, cut the paper to fit the two lanes (plus side road parking), painted a piece of paper, and cut felt for the opposite sides of the park accordingly. The length of the bridge was then made to span that gap, and the height to be taller than the bison so that cars could pass under.

(Last photo taken from a later step)

The first step was creating the walkway and the ramps for the bridge. Using the road as reference, popsicle sticks were cut and glued together side by side. After cooling, a support was added with the sticks going in the opposite direction.

Once the walkway was done, it was onto the ramps. The most critical part was making sure that they were tall enough for cars to pass underneath; so 4 popsicle sticks were hot glued as unstable stilts as sturdier filler sticks were glued in horizontally, doubly acting as the path to the main walkway.

For extra support a reinforcement was added at each of the 4 corners that help to stabilize the bridge as it stood, the shape I found worked the best was that open triangle.

Next was the design of the walls, based off of the original bridge at the creek. They were cut and hot glued together, then once dried fastened to the 4 supports, the end of each wall being at the start of one of the supports.

Then the construction of the plant boxes. While they would just be moved onto the bridge in real life, here it was more efficient to build them in. So I cut and hot glued each popsicle stick, making sure to measure the length of the bridge before cutting. these cut sticks went just to the start of the supports before turning in and meeting the wall. The gap was about an inch in length, or one flat popsicle stick.

The final part of this was the pillars that create an entrance for the bridge, and the decorations.

The pillars and the sign that connects them was made with- you guessed it! cut popsicle sticks and hot glue. They were then fastened to the ends of the bridge, and marked East, and West South Park.

As I lack good wildflower crafts, I decided to go with a simple blue flower the same shade as the Kansas flag to represent them. So that is what fills the plant boxes on this module.

Speaking of the Kansas flag, it's a sunflower (the state flower) that decorates the entrance and the painting that spans from East to West. It's growing from the East into the West, I meant this as a representation of age once again of the older generation being passed down to the new. However in the digital module I decided to flip this, with the younger side leading to the older, like how all of us get older, just like how a flower grows.

The ends are also decorated on the outside with bison and their calves, both on the sides you would expect them. However, I could not find baby bison modules. In light of this, I decided to paint a baby cow the same color as a bison calf.

The real final part of the decoration step was drawing pictures on each tile. I felt like it was important to put real Kansas wildlife, even though my drawings don't really them justice.

Now the physical module is done! Which means it's onto Tinkercad, and in my case I've never used it before. Or any 3D modeling software for that instance. The interface is quite friendly though, so with their short intro video I was able to module my first thing, a bison! include in the pictures is the shapes I used.

The first thing I did was use the free-draw tool to create the re-enforcement shape, then copy it 3 times. From that I had a structure that I could place to create the right distance for the walkway, this was done again in bison, matching up to the length of bison for the physical module, with the same height.

This worked surprisingly well and I used the free-draw tool again to draw the walls of the bridge and attached them.

Next the ramps were added measuring up with the height they were to the walls and reinforcements in the physical module. Off of that it was easier to add the walkway to the correct length/thickness.

Additionally, this is where I made the plant boxes and flowers to go with it. The petals of the flower and the flower boxes were the free-draw, and the pollen of the flower a cylinder. All other constructions in this step were a re-shaped square.

That includes the entrances. I actually did the entrances after the decoration, but I'm putting them here because it's really interchangeable. Constructing them was a matter of measuring and moving the re-shaped squares into position, as shown in the images.

The decorations, the icing on the cake!

First up the stem of the flower was made through free-draw, and the leaves separately. The head of the sunflower was made through the same method as the regular flowers. Speaking of the flowers, this time I decided to color them in a rainbow as a support for the LGBTQ, however they are still meant to represent wildflowers that would not be in that array of colors.

Then was adding the tiles, each is just a small square, but I couldn't find a way to draw images on the shape, so imagination will have to do.

Finally I made a baby bison to pair with the adult, and Hooray!!

Each module was complete, full pictures of both the digital and a reminder of the physical will be here :)