Nothing can stop this group of MESA Bridge Camp girls, not even severe thunderstorms! Due to a prediction of bad weather for our second to last day of Bridge Camp, campers and counselors had to think on their toes, as the new plan was to build our bridge in one day, Friday, instead of two. Thursday was spent having more fun with the different types of bridges, and then jumping right into what we'd all been waiting for- designing the bridge we would build the very next day!
In the spirit of MESA Bridge Camp, the girls worked in groups to come up with designs that would best suit our site and its traffic, terrain (muddy, with all that rain!), and anticipated changes over time. It was amazing to see how confidently and cooperatively each group created a design that they were excited about and proud of. In the presentations of the designs to their classmates, confidence was again a theme as each group took several questions from the class about their designs and answered them eloquently. Our highest expectations for the girls were again exceeded as they demonstrated understanding of and comfort in academic topics that they had only been introduced to three days earlier.
With the final design chosen, the girls got working to make up for lost time due to the anticipated weather by cutting and sanding the boards that would be used for building the next day. Though the rain did come down later in the day, at this time the sun was out, which made for some great pictures of the girls sanding and sawing!