Thesis

For my presentation, my goal was to create a bridge that would stiffen and inflate by itself. Of course it was designed to be small scale, but the idea was of course first designed for humans to walk on through the power of pneumatics.

This was the storyboard for the design that I started with. The extendable mechanism is housed in a small box that with the push of a button extends outwards and inflates itself.

This idea can be used in many different situations ranging from rescue missions in the mountains over a gap, or with firemen trying to save someone through the window of another building.

Precedents

This is a design created for more of an urban environment that also uses the power of pneumatics. I was inspired by this design, but also wanted to create a more portable and durable version that could be used when hiking or in rescue missions with firefighters or special forces.

First iterations of extendable mesh

At the very beginning of the project I imagined that the mesh that would extend out from the box to firm up and create a bridge would be made out of plastic, but with the materials I had it was actually quite challenging. I started off by gluing the plastic together then melding it together with a soldering iron and sowing it to fill in the cracks. Due to my lack of my materials, I decided to go with glueing and stapling two pieces of paper together because it was the most firm and air-tight.