Skip - Week 7 Blog Entry

The prior week, our group was able to finally test out our bridge. The bridge for our group was a bridge that Diesel in our group designed, which was a under truss bridge. The bridge was able to withstand 30lbs of sand, and it cost about 250 thousand dollars. My teammates and I agreed to design our next bridge for next class. There are more restrictions in the new bridge. It must now span 3 feet instead of 2, and must have a hollow middle section that represents the part where vehicles can pass through. With these new restrictions, our group agreed to design a new bridge. The major accomplishment of this week was understanding what was good and what was bad about our bridge design. Our bridge was good because it was strong and firm in the up and down direction. The bridge did not bend or break during the test in this vertical direction. Our bridge was not good because it bent and twisted in a c shape which caused it to eventually break. We do not have any problems so we just have to think of a new bridge design that will follow the new guidelines.

For the Knex designs, I would like the numbers of compression (force/strength) and tension (force/strength) on the individual pieces and gusset plates. This will enable me to find out where there is most force so I could tell where I would have to reinforce. These numbers are shown in the West Point Bridge Designer, and using these numbers I was able to build a strong bridge on the program. In other words, If I have these numbers for the Knex bridge, I think I will be able to build a strong bridge that equally distributes the forces of the weight. I am already provided the price so I can play around with the bridge by adding or taking out pieces and seeing where the best balance is.