In this all-day STEAM activity, 4th graders will step into Leonardo da Vinci’s shoes and solve a classic engineering challenge: build a bridge without glue, nails or rope. The journey takes students through 6 exciting stages, where they go from studying historical sketches and the physics of friction to building their own functional model. Teams will work through a design thinking engineering cycle – research, conceptual design, modelling, prototyping in pencil, and load testing their designs – to see how much weight their structure can support. In this challenge, students work in teams and have specific roles, where the designer leads the design, the builder assembles the structure, the tester measures the load capacity, the documenter documents the data, and the safety manager ensures that all materials are used responsibly. In a unique “knowledge exchange”, the original teams are reorganised into new teams, encouraging students to share their experiences of success and failure with their peers, and the new teams use this information to build a second improved version of their prototype. The adventure culminates outdoors, where the students build a large wooden bridge based on the prototype models, with one and/or more teams.

Brief description of the STEAM program

In this full-day STEAM program, teachers guide Grade 4 students through an authentic engineering challenge inspired by Leonardo da Vinci: building a self-sustaining bridge that stands without glue, nails, or rope connections. Students begin by exploring da Vinci as an inventor and artist, then move into a structured engineering process: problem definition → planning → prototyping → testing → redesign → real-world outdoor build. They construct a tabletop bridge model (e.g., pencils/rods), test load capacity, analyse what makes structures stable, and finally build a larger outdoor version using wooden pieces (where conditions allow). The STEAM-day emphasizes engineering design thinking (iterate, test, improve), scientific reasoning (forces, friction, balance, stability), mathematical measurement (length, symmetry, simple load comparisons), creative communication (sketches, posters, presentations), collaboration, and resilience (team roles, learning from failure).

Age group/ Grade	Student numbers	Duration	Number of stages	Subject(s)
4th-grade students	Whole class (max. 30 students) in teams of 4–5 students	6 x 45-60 minutes	6 stages	visual arts, natural sciences, mathematics, physics, physical education, design and technology