Educational Tools for Introductory Courses on Structures

This article presents two related educational tools to enhance teaching and learning in introductory courses on structural behavior and analysis. They target students with minimum or no structural background. The first tool consists of a hands-on project and two competitions. It involves the design and construction of a small bridge. It uses vinyl mini blinds as its main material. It is designed to motivate students and facilitate the teaching and learning of structural truss behavior. The second tool focuses on the use of a relatively powerful software package for structural analysis. It includes one competition. In this case, students are guided to use a software package for structural analysis. Students employ it to model the same mini-blind bridge used in the previous tool. Both tools have already been used by the author in the classroom for several years with successful results