Week 9

Last week was dedicated to testing and rebuilding our bridge to get the best weight to cost ratio. First we tested our original design with the truss on top, which held about 25 lbs. We tried removing the truss to reduce cost and got it to hold 20 lbs, with slightly lower cost per pound held up. We tried another approach after that, placing the truss on the bottom and extending it by one section on both ends, and got a huge increase in weight held, up to 33 lbs. It was our most expensive design, but it had the best weight to cost ratio as well. Placing the truss on the bottom helped the bridge better distribute the weight placed on it and remain standing for longer. Our next steps is to isolate the areas that gave way first and reinforce them to create a better bridge. We're also placing small members on the gusset plates at both ends to increase pull out force necessary to cause the end beams to fly off. Our goal is to get the best weight to cost ratio, so we'll be experimenting with different ideas this week to see if we get better numbers, and collaborate the best aspects of each design to create our final design.

I learned a lot about the bridge design process from taking this course. I expanded on my knowledge on trusses and learned about the cost versus strength dynamic in bridge building. I also learned about a few other factors that affect  a bridge in real life, like wind and torsion forces. There was  a lot of emphasis in this course about how our designs would differ from a real bridge and what factors we weren't counting in our simulations, so I learned quite a bit about the differences between the expected design and the real live creation. One of the most important things I learned from bridge design was that weight distribution is extremely  important in construction. A design that can manage to spread weight out evenly causes less stress joints to each joints, preventing the case of one beam or gusset plate from being subjected to too much tension or compression and failing. Bridge design also helped me realize the importance in the design process when it comes to big projects and how everything must be calculated before any real work is done when it comes to large projects.