It’s time for LEGO® Fun Friday!
Lego Fun Friday: Bridge Building Challenge

This is the building challenge for today (announced at the end of the last Lego Fun Friday post): 

Build a bridge out of LEGO®’s!  Challenge your kids to build a bridge that can support the weight of 100 pennies in a small cup.  Then, challenge them to increase the span of their bridge, or to increase the amount of pennies that the bridge can hold.

We had a lot of fun building bridges at our house!

Aidan decided to build a bridge that would span the distance between our kitchen island and the counter.  Building a bridge this long required him to scour his room and the game room looking for every possible flat brick to use in his creation.

After some work, he managed to make the bridge long enough, but it didn’t have enough weight on the ends to hold it up. (It did, however, make a fun place for 1-year-old Jonathan to walk under!)

Lego Fun Friday: Bridge Building Challenge

He wasn’t ready to give up!  He and I worked together to build some towers on the ends.  We finally had enough weight on the edges to support the weight of the bridge:

Lego Fun Friday: Bridge Building Challenge

We didn’t even attempt to put any weight on this bridge – it’s a miracle it held up long enough to take the picture!  But it was fun to be able to say we did it!

I didn’t get a picture of Gresham’s bridge.  He’s the type of guy who keeps building and re-building, and his final design was beautiful but didn’t have a flat area to test to see how much weight it could hold.

Owen (age 3) built a remarkably strong bridge.  We were all amazed!

Lego Fun Friday: Bridge Building Challenge

We started putting pennies in a cup to see how many pennies the bridge could hold.  It quickly became obvious that it was going to hold a LOT of pennies, so we started adding them 10 at a time.

Lego Fun Friday: Bridge Building Challenge

We ran out of pennies at about 230, and added the rest of the change in our change jar.  The bridge kept on holding!

Lego Fun Friday: Bridge Building Challenge

We needed something to add for more weight – so we added an unopened jelly jar!  The bridge was starting to come apart by this point, but it didn’t collapse!  We were all impressed at how strong Owen’s bridge was, and how strong LEGO®’s are.  Aidan kept saying, “I cannot believe that a 3 year old built a bridge that strong!”

Lego Fun Friday: Bridge Building Challenge

Now it’s your turn!  If your kids did the bridge building challenge, link up a post about it, or if you don’t have a blog (or don’t blog about LEGO®’s), feel free to share photos on the Frugal Fun for Boys Facebook page on Friday or Saturday.  Post link-ups can also be any LEGO® activity or kid-generated LEGO® design.

The next LEGO® Fun Friday will be Friday March 1st.  The building challenge for March 1st is to build an amazing flying vehicle – plane, spaceship, rocket, etc.  This is a challenge that even the littlest builders can take part in!

LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO® group of companies which does not sponsor, authorize, or endorse this site. 

4 Comments

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  1. Phyllis at All Things Beautiful Feb 15, 2013

    It figures I would find this Lego Challenge just when I decided to start my own! Great idea to make a bridge.

    Reply
    1. Sarah Feb 16, 2013

      Phyllis, thanks for stopping by! We have been doing Lego challenges since late summer of last year. We do two challenges a month, usually. Feel free to come back and link up, and I'll check out your Lego challenges as well!

      Reply
  2. Erin Feb 16, 2013

    We didn't get any pictures, but my boys did this challenge last week. Both of them made small bridges; eventually I had to insist on a certain height and length, but they were still a lot smaller than the ones your boys made! My 8-year-old's bridge easily held 100 pennies, and we had to add in a whole bunch more change before it started to crack.

    My 10-year-old's bridge easily held 100 pennies. We added the rest of the change and it didn't even shake. Then we put on my two 3-pound dumbells and it still held strong. Eventually my husband stood on it with one foot (balancing himself with one hand on the counter), and it held for a moment and then one of the legs broke. Pretty impressive, I'd say! :)

    Reply
    1. Sarah Feb 16, 2013

      That's great! My oldest son made one bridge before we announced the challenge, and 100 pennies seemed like a reasonable weight. Well, he must have been doing a "quickie job" to get onto the next thing, because when we went back and built our "real" bridges, it was amazing how much they held! Impressive that your son's bridge could hold 2 dumbells and only broke under the weight of an adult!

      Thanks so much for taking the time to comment. My boys love to hear that other kids are trying our challenges!

      Reply
  3. AmyB Mar 10, 2015

    My boys love legos and this looks like a great challenge for them today!

    Reply
  4. Lakitta Johnson Jan 25, 2017

    Thanks, my GIRLS love this!

    Reply

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