Avatar Inspired Concept Bridge

My name is Michael, I am going to be a junior at a small high school in Southern California, and I present to you my concept bridge for the "Make it Bridge Student Design Challenge". I am interested in engineering, and I thought this would be a great challenge as it would allow me exposure to how engineers would go through the process to conceptualize, design, and build similar structures. My concept design incorporates both technology and nature, creating a bridge that is nearly alive and allowing this bridge to become a piece of the natural environment in itself. I also designed this bridge to be functional and pleasant to look at.

For this project I made a physical model and a 3d rendition on Tinkercad

For the physical model:

• cardboard
• acrylic paints: Grey, Tan, Light Green
• corrugated board (for the base of the model)
• poster board
• construction paper (dark blue)
• clay
• modeling moss

Tools:

• Glue (both hot glue and regular)
• Cardboard Knife
• exacto knife

For the 3d model:

• Tinkercad

When I first started to come up with designs for this bridge, I noticed in the description for the "Make It Bridge Challenge" that you could build a community center or other such buildings as long as we had a bridge incorporated in this design. So, at I first thought of a design similar to Apple Park, Apple's new headquarters. I drew up a similar design, but with a wavey roof, as you will see in the attached image above. After thinking and dwelling on the design for a little while, I decided to come up with a totally different design which is based off of this futuristic tunnel design picture (attached). I liked how this bridge had multiple indents allowing sunlight and fresh air into the bridge. Then I saw this other bridge (the image after the first image of the tunnel) had a tunnel design and thought it would be a great idea for this type of bridge. Funny enough, I also was inspired by this waterproof cast which had a more web design that had multiple openings but still provided a strong structure. To make this bridge stand out, I wanted to add some technology features, and I came across Mercedes's Avatar car. The designers for this car added scales in the back to make it look like it was alive, and I wanted to incorporate this into my bridge also.

As I mentioned before, I came up with a community center design at first, but then decided to go with my bridge design in the end. At first the community center was going to have lots of open spaces for recreational activities, a small gym, a lookout area, and a rehabilitation area for people who had suffered major injuries to relax and recover their health. In the middle would be a small garden filled with multiple fruit and ornamental trees to provide a habitat for small animal life. Then once I decided to go with a bridge as my design, I Incorportated a similar design of the second bridge image shown in the previous step while also making it look more like the cast. I then also used the same concept from the Avatar car scales on the back of the car and then incorporated that into my design as well. I also designed the bridge to be at least 20' feet high to allow plenty of space to travel through. After making a rough measurement of the distance from one side to the other, I decided to make the bridge span 120' feet. This bridge would be linked in with the local irrigation system so that the plants hanging from it and around it would have lots of water, allowing it to be an oasis with plants above a dry desert. As you walk over the bridge you could see the small animal life that the dry riverbed holds that you might not see from the riverbank, such as lizards, small birds, and other animals with a closer view, but not interfering with them.

Since this was a concept bridge challenge, I decide to make it a little more interesting than just a regular bridge. I added sensors in the design that would allow the bridge to provide either warmth or shade. Taking a look at the Avatar car again, I decided to incorporate the "scales'' or "plates" from the car and use them as a cooling method. When it is hot, the bridge would cool itself by opening the scales at an angle to allow more air to flow through, cooling the pedestrians as they walk through the bridge. If there was no wind and it was just hot, the bridge's sensors would detect this and then hug the bridge openings to create more shade. If the weather was cold the bridge would open up allowing more sunlight to come in. I also saw this interesting article that talked about how scientists were trying to figure out a way to mass produce this specific type of mushroom to create sustainable plastic one day. I thought this would be a great idea to incorporate into my design as well.

For this bridge I wanted the bridge to help people by being both useful and convenient. I had in mind a great place for this bridge where it accomplishes both of these things. In the first image there is a long riverbed that goes from one end of the map to the other. Right along the edge of this dry riverbed is a bike trail that runs from one end to the other. This riverbed divides my neighborhood from another neighborhood on the other side. I have gone on this trail many times before and thought how nice it would be to have a bridge on the bike path that would connect the two neighborhoods so that we could cross from one side to the other without having to bike or walk all the way to the end to cross along a street overpass. This way, I could just ride across the bridge connecting the two neighborhoods, saving time and giving shade or warmth to the traveler. Not only that, but this would allow other people in my neighborhood meet with the other neighborhood, allowing both neighborhoods to create new friendships and allowing friends on both sides to have a quicker way of seeing each other. This location being both convenient to have, useful to our neighborhoods, and strengthening the relationship between the two neighborhoods, I picked this location for my concept bridge.

After finding the location, then designing and thinking about the technology I wanted to incorporate, I set to work. I had never worked with Tinkercad before and so at first had a little trouble figuring out how to work the program. But after researching a couple of YouTube videos and sticking to it I finally came up with my model. First, I tried to make it as close as possible to what the actual bridge site looks like by adding in the embankment walls and adding in the fence that looked similar to the bike trail. Then I designed the bridge. This took a while to make and get it to what I intended it to look like. The most difficult part was probably here. Due to the length of the bridge in the model and how many holes I needed to add in, the program would lag and have a hard time loading. Sometimes it would even crash and when it would finally load, the rendition would have spikes coming out of it. So, to get the look I needed I decided to leave as is and continued working. After adding in the "scales" or tiles to the bridge, I then added in trees to make it more actuate to what the site looked like.

After creating the 3D model, I then cut the base to the right size. I went on to build the supports for the model with cardboard and then covered those in a dark grey paint. I then made some homemade clay to build the bottom of the model and have it look like the terrain that covers the riverbed. I added some fake moss so that it can look like bushes that you would see throughout the actual trail. I then added some fencing I had lying around and used it to bound the sides of the model, which greatly improved the look. I then built the bridge out of poster board and cut little polygons for the openings. I then cut up some of the dark blue construction paper and made hexagons to cover the openings as the scales. I then also used some of the leftover foam board for the walkway for my bridge. When this was done, I was satisfied with the model and how it looked similar to the site where this bridge would set.

This was a fun, challenging, exciting contest that was both personally rewarding to do and to see the creative designs the other contestants had come up with. I learned a lot of new things from using 3D software, to building a scale model, and thinking about the new possibilities technology could add to the bridge. This project was not only fun to do but overall taught me new practical skills. Thanks for looking at my idea for the "Make It Bridge Challenge!" I hope that everyone else who had participated in this challenge had as much fun as I did.