Week 4: Team Update

The previous week included a competition to create the lowest costing bridge design that was capable of allowing the transport of vehicles successfully. Groups were required to create one single design of a truss bridge to submit and allow that one design to be seen and critiqued by other students. The trial, error and stimulation in the WPBD program allowed students to become more knowledgeable of how to interpret the reading of the compression and tension forces applied on the beams. If there was a beam that exceeded a force greater than 1, the bridge would become nonfunctional and the truss bridge would be a failure. With this in mind a strategy was discovered to allow unexplored areas of designing below and above the middle beam body of the bridge. The lowest costing design that was created cost $253087.61 and can be seen below. The amount of deflection the bridge experienced was not significant and is reasonable for the safety of objects being transported.

The following week will consist of the further changes to improve the ratio for the bridge. Computer analysis and calculations will be to improve the design are also planned to be included in the next week's goals.

Difficulties that will be needed to be overcome will consist of the need to manage and multitask the design, ratio improvements, research on an overall completion of a bridge process and frequent updates on the designs of teams.