March 2009
Six lucky pupils from St Teresa's Primary in Possilpark, Glasgow have had an exclusive first look, and walk over, of the new Tradeston Footbridge, after winning a competition set by Halcrow.
Halcrow, who designed the newest bridge over the Clyde, set the competition for all of the feeder primary schools into St Rochs Secondary, including St Stephen's, St Rochs primary, St Mungos, St Gilberts and Our Lady of the Assumption.
Each school was visited by Colin Walker, a principal engineer with Halcrow, specialising in bridges, for a lecture on bridge engineering. Pupils were then set a challenge to design their own bridge, with the top six designs per school then forming a team to go forward to take part in a practical challenge against the teams from the other schools. The practical challenge allowed the children to build their own footbridges out of balsa wood and test them to destruction.
St Teresa's emerged victorious with their bridge and the team, a mix of boys and girls, enjoyed a special day at the site office on the River Clyde where they got a guided tour of the new footbridge by the bridge's designer from Halcrow.
Colin Walker said: "The standard of all the designs and ultimately the finished bridge structures were all fantastic but the team from St Teresa's ultimately just edged it.
"As a company, Halcrow enjoys going out into local schools to teach kids about the possibilities of a career in engineering. It's great to see the enthusiasm and how the youngsters respond to the challenges set."