Hydraulic Bridge experiment

Since we've been learning about bridges and I've been scouring the internet for project ideas I found this hydraulic bridge project shared by Stem Inventions which I knew we had to try for ourselves although we did end up making some tweaks to make it work a bit better for us. This was a project that captured Forrest's attention and he thought it was the coolest thing ever. What was even cooler was that a couple of days after we had finished Nixie had turned on an episode of Inside The Factory and there was a whole segment about hydraulic power! 

It took us two weekends to finish this project because I accidentally had purchased the wrong size syringes for the hydraulics so had to order new ones and wait them for them to arrive which was slightly annoying so I'll add a link to the ones we used that worked.

What you will need:

• thin lollipop sticks
• wooden cubes with holes 1.5cm
• dowels to fit the holes (we used the dowels found in a sushi rolling mat!)
• glue gun
• syringes x2 and tubes
• 4 inch cable tie
• water

How we made it:

1. Create your base using 5 lollipop sticks. Have three sticks in a row and add glue as shown then add the other two on top of the glue. Repeat so you have two identical pieces. Then add 4 cubes to the end of each length (we ended up flipping ours over so the cubes all laid evenly on a flat surface).
   

   

   

    

2. Next add 4 lollipop sticks to each length by creating triangles at each end like shown in the photo.

   

   

   

3.  

   Next you want to connect your two sides by gluing a lollipop stick at each end and adding 4 more cubes at each corner (make sure that the holes are pointing outwards).

   

   

   

4. Next, we cut our dowel to size and beaded two cubes onto it. This will be the hinge that the bridge goes up from.

   

   
5. Next we cut a lollipop stick to fit from the two new cubes (make two of these) (this end will be slightly narrower than the other end) Then we glued a regular sized lollipop stick from cube to cube on the other end and began making our top base.
   

   
   

   
6. Next we glued our two long strips we just made to the shorter lollipop sticks (add the other short one to the other side). Next we added 2 lollipop sticks across the top base.
   

   

   
7. Then we began building the floor of the bridge beginning with the middle section and then continued outwards until it was covered and finishing it up with adding 8 cubes at each section.
   

   

   
8. Next we built the sides using the truss design and adding cubes to all four ends.
   

   

   
9. 

   

   

    

    

10. Then we added a cube to the bottom centre of the hinge side with the holes pointing to the sides and also a cube just by the first horizontal lollipop stick.
11. Next it's time to sort out the syringes. Take one tube and attach it to the other syringe then fill it with water.
    

    
12. Next take 2 cable ties and attach your syringes to each cube you just attached to the bridge. We ended up needing to add another cube to the one on the top just t create a little lip so that the syringe wouldn't move as much and so that it would lift the bridge the highest
    

    

    
13. Now you are finished and you can test it out.