Who would have imagined that structural engineering videos made at UW would reach more than 5 million people around the world? But that is exactly what happened when Prof. Brodland (now retired) and his team made a series of videos that featured classroom models they had built. The Engineering Models Channel explains how suspension bridges and flying buttresses on cathedrals work and it demonstrates why semi-circular arches – though visually appealing – are not a particularly good structural shape. The most popular video, Retaining Walls, went viral in 2019 and now has 2.3 million views. The videos have appeared on Japanese TV, Reddit, and in classrooms around the world.
The team wanted to make the videos as accessible as possible, so they used simple analogies and everyday language to explain even the advanced ideas. They typed in English closed captioning so that machine-translated subtitles in other languages would be as accurate as possible. They also posted online drawings and classroom instructions for the models so that anyone could build a copy of their own and learn from it. We hope you will take a look at the videos. Can you watch just one?
The videos were possible because of funding from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Centre for Extended Learning. Team members included Prof. Rania Al-Hammoud, Chloe Gibson, Dandi Zhao, Kristen Wilson, Rob Lauren and Antonina Joukova.
A frame from the Gothic Cathedrals video.