During the week 3 lab session, all three of us were able to collaborate to try and make a superior bridge design. We were able to get a bridge that was able to stand while costing $242,000, which is a huge improvement to our individual concepts. We have decided that we are all going to try other standard templates to try and get a more efficient design going. We don't really have any conflicts yet, as we are still in the brainstorming process as to figuring out which design works best.
I think the West Point Bridge Designer can be used to help find a viable pattern of how you should design your bridge, but it does not include other factors such as wind or other random natural effects. It does however let you choose a specific span length and support configurations to match real world scenarios. It also gives you a pretty standard cost of how much your bridge will be depending on what components you use. Some trade offs to using this program is that it doesn't have any information about the fatigue of the bridge, or how long it will last with its durability. Although it does have options for difference load capacities, there are always many different kinds of combinations that need to be thought out before building the bridge, which this program doesn't have.
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