8: Building an Iratu Bridge

June 23, 2018

A Game : Can Iratu Sticks hold up a Stack of Books?

In the rare case you don’t know: This is what Iratu/Ekel looks like - it’s the coconut leaf stem, often used to make rakes, and found anywhere with tropical weather.

What began as the precursor for the ‘stick bridge’ project ended up just becoming a fun group exercise, where we tested the structural integrity of a many Iratu’s stuck in a sheet of foam.

Running out of time!

We never got to start on the actual project I had prepared for that day- the Iratu Bridge. This was because the mapping exercise - which I thought was fairly simple - took more than half the time. I wish I had time, lots of it- to allow the kids to work at their own pace, and not merely fulfill my workshop agendas. This eventually became a non-mandatory homework, and several kids produced bridges of their own accord, some cute little ones, some incredibly complex ones and even a hydraulic cardboard drawbridge (which a student had found a tutorial on youtube!) I was really excited that students were spending their spare time working on this project with such enthusiasm.

Unfortunately, these were the only bridges I had a picture of!