Sep 21 2007
Building Bridges (Pic of the Week)
Popsicles never looked so strong.
(click to make bigger and sharper)
With all the talk lately of aging bridges across the United States, I’m reminded of my high school physics class’s bridge building contest.
The guy above, whom I’ve known since second grade, is the subject of my series “First Best Friend.” We’ll call him “Chris,” since that’s his name. We’ve lost touch and re-connected a few times over the years, and the last time we spent substantial time together was our freshman year in college.
Still, one memory remains burned into my brain.
I’ll never forget that the smug bastard’s bridge won. Salting the wound is the fact that he worked solo, with the rest of us in pairs. He went on to become a sound engineer instead of the kind who builds things. I have no idea whether he still has that Robert Plant shirt.
My partner and I opted for a suspension bridge, and if memory serves, we placed third. I think it surprised people more than any other entry. As the only suspension bridge, we received the “Tacoma Narrows Hope it Makes It” award. Our physics teacher had a sense of humor.
Oddly, my partner went on to become a dentist and now builds bridges of a different sort for a living.
Mr. Storm (that was his real name, too) tested the bridges by hanging weight from a platform in the center. If your bridge broke, you lost. All that work, only to see it reduced to a pile of sticks. I wish I could remember exactly what materials we had; I think just basswood sticks and glue.
For the record, I can’t remember how much weight Chris’s winning entry held. I’m a regular fount of knowledge today.
Chris currently is trying his hand at a different gig — managing Isaac Hayes’ current international tour. On his MySpace page he often posts about the latest ups and downs of road life while trying to keep musicians happy and on schedule (a track starts playing automatically on his page, but at first it’s dialog).
How many bottles of mysterious physics and chemistry lab liquids could your local road bridges support? Take that thought into your weekend with you.
I did not know Chris until I met him in college along with Mark and Shannon. We all were involved in one of the campus groups. I have not seen Chris in person in a long time.
Speaking of what Chris is doing now, managing Isaac Hayes’s tour sounds really “heavy.” Get it?
On a comment about the bridge contest, we were asked to do something like that in 7th grade for some other project–not class related. I had to quit it because it was getting to be too much. I was not into physics. I did not bother to take it. It was more than I could stand. Being the son of a math teacher, I ended up in high school hating math. I could not handle it. After 10th grade geometry, I hated it. I thought I would try to major in something related. After college Calculus, I did not want to major in it at all. Physics was out.
My Mom was a very good math teacher. Unfortunately, she could not be my teacher in the classroom. I was actually against that idea when she became a teacher at the same college that several of us attended. I would not have had any of her classes any way. I was afraid that some folks would give me a rough time if the discovery was made that my Mom and I were actually “Mom and son.” If that happened, I thought some folks would give me a rough time. I downplayed it. I saw how some of my fellow classmates would get “snobbish” if one of their parents was a teacher at the school. I chose to not say anything. If asked or someone just happened to figure it out that Mom was a teacher at the school, I had a very downplayed attitude about it. I would say, “Yeah? So what? What’s new?”
I have a respect for math. One day, I really became interested and understood the subject in a math study guide–Algebra and Geometry. It was much easier to follow without all of the distractions that I had back in high school and college. That is a discussion for another day.
A suspension bridge, eh? I’m actually reading a book about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge right now…this story seems uber-cool to me.
We never did the bridge building, but our science class did an egg drop. Grades were assigned based on the height from which you could safely drop an egg in relation to the height of your egg-catching contraption. People were designing these monsters that required their egg survive a drop from the junior high roof. I, being an intellegint but ultimately lazy boy, realized that the real key was to make the catcher as thin as possible. I showed up with a thin zip-lock baggie of damp sand. A+ for surviving a fall from one foot!
My classmates were pissed.
Hmm… I never had to do that kind of thing in school. I must have missed out big time.
Have a great weekend Mark
Mark, before you wrote the word ’smug’, that’s the first one that came to my mind when that picture appeared. I didn’t also think ‘bastard’ as you did, but then I suppose you would have more intimate knowledge of his geneology than I do. :)
I would love to have taken part in one of those types of contests, either in high school or university. Alas, my high school never did anything like it and, being in Chemical Engineering rather than civil, I never got into bridges. But that reminds me of a joke: what’s the difference between Civil and Chemical Engineers? Chemical engineers build weapons, Civil engineers build targets.
Ha!
And Moksha, never underestimate the deadly combination of intelligence and laziness. An intelligent man will go to great lengths to preserves his lazy ways, and in so doing may ultimately change the world. Or, just end up slacking. Sometimes hard to tell.
John - I didn’t hate math. Until my physics teacher, however, I was saddled with teachers who had zero ability to help me understand it. Of course, it’s a different animal from Trig or other advanced math (I can’t comment on cal because my high school didn’t offer it until my senior year, when the rest of us were on track for Trig that year), because you get to see the formulas in action in the lab.
MG - It is very cool. I sunk a lot of time reading about the San Francisco Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge after my recent California trip. It’s my favorite style of bridge because of the science and the elegance of it.
Way to go on the egg drop! I did a similar exercise in a Chamber of Commerce leadership group. We had to drop our eggs from about 12 feet, and we could use only soda straws and masking tape.
Dave - Yeah, and that’s why you drive a fancy, award-winning Corvette and I drive a hand-me-down Chrysler.
OK, so that’s not the reason, but it was fun to type.
Simon - Nobody can deny he looked smug; glad you agree. The other part isn’t accurate, though. It just felt like the right thing to put there.
Thanks for that joke. Another difference between Civil and Chemical Engineers is the method by which they rape the land.
Intelligence and laziness combine to create one of our son’s favorite recently grasped concepts: efficiency.
Wow that picture brings back memories. My bridge was terrible. I can’t remember who I did it with but it was not a success. Speaking of math did you know that many freshman now a days are doing Trig in their Freshman or Sophmore years - we had be taught trig to do Physcis by good old “Steve Storm”.
Rob - You said it, man. When Storm taught us, I had one epiphany after another, and actually got some good grades on Trig homework and tests.
It’s a shame there still is no good method of rewarding excellent teachers and weeding out the scrubs.
Mark and Rob…Storm was amazing. I requested him for my study hall, and he saved me in all of my math classes. We had to have had THE WORST math teachers of all time at Heber. To take it a step further…he actually helped me with English on several occasions. Smart dude.
OK…Simon absolutely cracked me up with his mini-rant on laziness and intelligence. That was funny as hell. I’m so totally ripping that off. If I could needle-point, I might even put it on a pillow!