Penang Bridge vs. Tower Bridge

Wednesday (12/08/2009)

a) Penang Bridge vs. Tower Bridge.
Penang Bridge is the longest bridge in Malaysia and is today ranking at number 39 in the world (according to Wikipedia).
It is to link between Seberang Prai in the mainland of Malaysia to Gelugor which is abroad. Ze Yan said it does not charge toll while Jin Shan said it does. When I used Penang Bridge about 6 years ago, I remembered we had to pay toll. Anyway, we have to do more research on this. However, Tower Bridge is free probably due to the much shorter distance. In fact, most bridges in London are toll free.
We compared the length. It is 13.6 km or 13, 600 m. It’s a long bridge with no bascules.
Ze Yan said that it looked beautiful in the evening. Tower Bridge was opened in 1894 while Penang Bridge in 1985.
Tower Bridge is 244 m. The middle bridge is called the bascules. It is divided evenly so that could be lifted when ships sail by. Each bascule is 30.5m. The first and second suspension bridge is each 82 m. The height of Tower Bridge is 62m. Then, we recalled the lifting process which we discussed yesterday. They are always excited about it.

b) Sketching of Tower Bridge, London.
The kids sketched Tower Bridge. Each bridge looked beautiful. They also labelled it.
Construction of Tower Bridge, London.
Before continuing this, we talked briefly on our construction. The towers had no windows. We discussed on whether to have a lifted bascules exactly like Tower Bridge. Almost all wanted lifted bascules. So, we decided to tie string from the bascules to the cones on the Tower roof.
We tried working as a team. The kids took turn to construct this group by group.