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How To Make a Bridge for Girl Scout Bridging Ceremony

A Girl Scouts Bridging Ceremony is held when Girl Scouts move from one level of scouting up to the next (such as Brownie to Junior, or Junior to Cadet). There are many ways to make a bridge for a bridging ceremony. It can be elaborate or simple, or you can even use a real bridge outdoors for your ceremony. If your ceremony is indoors, you'll need some sort of prop. We needed something simple, not too heavy, easily transportable, and something that the girls could help build themselves. Here's how our Girl Scout Troop made ours: We used three wooden pallets like this that were donated by Wal-Mart. Just go to the loading area around the back of the store and ask if they have any that they can give you. (They cannot give away the painted ones, but they usually have others that they will be happy to donate if you tell them it's for your scout group.) The pallets are kept separate for the entire process which makes them easy to transport in a car and set up at the ceremony site. It was not necessary to attach them to each other at all. The basic structure is built by simply laying two of them on the ground and the third one across them, like this:

To make them easier to walk on and to look nicer, we covered them with cardboard using a staple gun. The girls painted the cardboard brown. This probably would have been enough, but we wanted to have hand rails as well to make it pretty. We were given eight cedar fencing slats from a neighbor who was removing part of his garden fence. We used smaller scraps of wood, to make four simple slot areas on the sides of each of the two bottom pallets. This made it easy to slip the vertical slats in at our meeting place without having to nail them on permanently. They could probably be attached using a couple of screws during the set up if that is easier. Then we strung a flower garland across them. A daisy flower garland would have been ideal, in honor of Juliette "Daisy" Gordon Lowe, the founder of Girl Scouts. Then the girls used two more big pieces of cardboard and painted them using some small paint brushes, to look like stones for the sides of the bridge. We tied them on using some wire once the bridge was set up. Behind the bridge, we made a rainbow of helium balloons strung on fishing string. It was a great backdrop for taking pictures after the ceremony. There are lots of other ideas to use for your bridging ceremony at Scouting Web. Have fun at your Girl Scout bridging ceremony!

Easy Bridge!
Here's another bridging ceremony bridge that we made a different year. It's much easier to transport, and very small for storage. There was no building or construction needed at all. 2 yards of rainbow fabric, cut into strips as shown 2 daisy garlands (6' long each), cut into 8 pieces each 8 wooden dowels 8 plastic tumblers 6 lbs of plaster of paris 8 pipe cleaners Total cost for all materials was just under $40. We will use this bridge from year to year. First, we took four of the dowels and cut a few inches off them to make them a little shorter for the ends. We mixed the plaster of paris and filled the tumblers about 2/3 full, then inserted the dowels when it started to set. Then we used the pipe cleaners to tie the strips of rainbow fabric to the tops of the dowels.

Next, we tied a bunch of daisies to the dowels using the same pipe cleaners, and put more daisies in the tumblers as shown. This was easy to set up since it was all tied together when we arrived for the cermony. We just carted it around in a smaller box. The girls just walked through the colorful "handrails" to the other side. Here's a photo of our bridge in action. The cadettes made an arch of colorful helium balloons for the bridging girls to walk through as they pass over our bridge. Have fun at your Girl Scout bridging ceremony!

Cast-in-place Bridge Building Activity

Yes, we actually build a bridge (2 to be exact) from water and plaster of paris. Students are given a change to mix water and plaster of paris at differing ratios to see which bridge is strongest. They will then break these bridges in an apparatus that shows the strength of the best bridge. Students are asked to Plan, Design and Construct the bridge as a team. They have a time frame and are exposed to algebra (in the Moment of Inertia equation), hydration (from the water and plaster of paris chemical properties) and the idea of

deflection. Problem solving/team building skills are also gained from this exercise. The students souvenirs become the pieces of the bridge. They really enjoy it!

Instructors furnish all of the items to be used, including bridge molds, water, plaster of paris, spray for the mold, the apparatus to break the bridge, trash bags, paper towels and wet wipes. This exercise can be slightly messy, but we keep a trash bag under the molds so that clean up is fast. is is how I made relatively cheap wooden bridge pillars for the standard size Marklin bridges, which I think turned out ok for a first attempt Soft pine wood. Cut to size and make lines with pencil:

Use a sharp knife to make a dent horizontally:

Deepen the cut using a soldering iron:

Use a sharp screw driver to make the vertical dents:

Spray paint in grey colour:

Weathering (first a light grey colour and then various colours using dry brush techniques. Used some soft black pastel powder on top of pillar to simulate the soot from trains):

In position taking the load!

Brgs Lasse My bridge pillars were even quicker to make! They were intended to imitate a concrete pillar rather than brick. Take 2 pieces of 20mm MDF board, cut to approximate width and glue together. Once dry, setup an electric router (wood router not a network router) with a bullnose bit, and run pillars through the router, putting a rounded edge on each corner. Cut pillars to needed height and paint and weather as needed! Job done!

Ive been avoiding the construction of the abutments for my trestle and bridge for a while, mostly because I didnt have the slightest idea of how I was going to construct them. I am now at the point where I cannot continue my layout terrain without the abutments being in place. I knew I wanted the abutments to have a brick look, so I started to do some research on how to accomplish this. I found 2 options; the first to use brick-textured styrene, or to cast the abutments in plaster. I opted with the latter option, mainly due to the fact that the one and only hobby shop in my city didnt carry any type of brick styrene or similar material.

I first started by making a cardboard template of each abutment to ensure that it fit properly on the layout. I notated on each template the front and back so I didnt somehow mix them up. I then used each template to create a basic form out of heavy cardstock and masking tape, ensuring that the face of the mold was level and flat. Remember also that the form needs to be built in the REVERSE direction of the front of the template, or in other words, the template should lay in the form back-side facing up. This is a mistake that I narrowly avoided, which would have resulted in backwards abutments.

I used plaster of paris for the castings, mixing it to the consistency of oatmeal. I then quickly filled the form to about 1cm thick, shaking the form to evenly settle the plaster. While the plaster set, I butted books up against each edge of the form to prevent the forms walls from bowing. Cardstock worked fine for this type of casting, as long as the plaster wasnt too moist and runny, which would warp and tear the form.

After the casting set for about 10-15 minutes, I gently tore away the paper form. I then smoothed out and rough edges, which were most apparent on the back side. At this point the plaster was solid, but still wet enough to carve. I used a ruler and a scissor blade to carve the bricks. After the cast was a little firmer, I etched cracks and gouges in the bricks to make them look a bit more weathered. I then gave the abutment a final brush with a firm nylon brush, giving the plaster some texture, as well as removed any loose plaster pieces.

Because plaster (especially plaster of paris) has such a fast setting time and short window to work with, I only cast and carved one abutment at a time. If I had even poured two at the same time, the second would be too hard to carve by the time I finished the first.