Bridge Strength and Engineering Lab

Students fold paper bridges, test spans and frames, map bridge forces and design a bridge on a budget.

Grades 4–5Virtual lab · 5 stations1 student per deviceNo student loginsWorks offline

Try it free: the demo opens the Start page and Station 1 right in your browser. No sign-up needed.

Virtual labs are sold separately and aren’t part of the All-Access licenses.

Grade level

Grades 4–5: Paper bridges, penny loads and a budget design challenge for Grades 4–5

Shape and stiffness, span vs. load, rigid triangles, compression and tension, criteria and constraints, fair tests, reading data tables and graphs

NGSS: 3-PS2-1 · 3-5-ETS1-1 · 3-5-ETS1-2 · 3-5-ETS1-3 · 5-PS2-1

Open the game file in any web browser: Chromebooks, laptops or your smartboard. No accounts, no student logins and no internet needed once it's downloaded.
Each student types their name on the Start page, then works through the stations in order. Each station has a prediction, a hands-on activity, a data table or log that fills in as they work and a check question.
Students finish with a printable lab report (print or save as PDF). The Teacher Notes include the standards, a full answer key and a reset button for shared devices.
Each purchase includes the lab file and a one-page Quick Start guide.