Inspiring our Future Engineers by Building Bridges

We have been building bridges at Hartlebury School!

When a team of volunteers attended Hartlebury C of E Primary School in Kidderminster, the children were thrilled with being given the opportunity to build a “real” 13m long cable stay bridge in their playground.  Greg Wall, Joshua Mason and Antony Cooper from Osborne  were supported by the generosity of WM Plant Hire who transported the bridge that was borrowed from the University of Birmingham.

The Osborne team had previously been working with Year 6 teacher, Miss Branagh in developing a bridge engineering topic as part of the class’s design and technology studies.  Equipped with this new knowledge and assisted by Osborne engineers, the children first designed and built paper bridges which they took great delight in testing to destruction. The winning bridge carrying 25 Mars Bars and a can of baked beans!!!  Under the guidance of proper engineering drawings they then embarked on assembling the 20 metre long “real” cable-stayed bridge.

The day ended with the students walking proudly across the bridge that they had built.  What better way to inspire our next generation into science, technology, engineering and maths!