Wednesday, May 2, 2012

A2 - THOMAS


My bridge is designed to accomplish two goals. The first goal is to spread the weight out as evenly throughout the bridge as I could in order to let the bridge support more weight. The second goal was to keep the cost as low as possible, and that was done using a few larger pieces to build the bridge instead of numerous smaller pieces. Larger pieces means less expensive connectors. This bridge is built with the limitations in angles and parts of the K'nex pieces but since custom parts were unavailable, I had to improvise for some connections. I drew the bridge and centered it around triangles since its a really good shape to support weight and redistribute the tensions caused by the weight. I tried to create an-arch that was still capable of holding up the device on top but I had to change the design to make it a bit of a triangle based arch in order for it to fit the constraints. My aim was to achieve something like the arc with triangles design I had from WPBD but the K'nex's restrictions on angles and parts makes it non-viable. I learned more about working under constraints and how much of an obstacle it can present at times. I felt further improvements could only be made after testing my current bridge design and comparing the capabilities of my original bridge and any iterations of it in order to come up with the best bridge design.

Figure 1: Sketch and plans for bridge

Figure 2: Cost Calculations

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