On Tuesday, February 7, students in Dean of Studies Evan Barth’s sole class, Engineering, created bridges out of various sized rods and small balls as a project to further comprehend the logistics and processes of building.

The objective of the assignment was to solve the problem of crossing a river in the least costly way possible.

“Some [parts of the goal] was just the physical design and some of it was the teamwork and dynamics of that,” Barth said.

The class was divided into two groups; members of each group collaborated with one another to successfully build a bridge that would sustain itself over a wide yellow strip of paper, which served as a substitute for the river. Groups drew their designs on paper two weeks prior to the actual construction of their bridges to give them enough time to amend and finalize their outlines.

Both groups were timed to see who could finish faster; once a group claimed they were done, Barth tested the bridge’s stability horizontally and vertically and its structure.

“Going through the whole design process from beginning to actually making a model and seeing how that works out [was worthwhile],” Akhil Prakash (12) said.

He believed this project taught him the realities of designing and building: that one’s plans may not always work out in the end.

Barth assigns this project every year to his students, forcing them to cooperate with one another and manage problems in construction.