Week 6: Amanda Ngov Knex Design and Build Process

Last week gave students a longer time frame of learning how to design and build a truss bridge with Knex pieces. The majority of the lab allowed access to all the available pieces for design changes and improvements as needed. In addition, the initial beginning of testing an intended finalized bridges was permitted and showed many faults in many bridges that students built. The main goal of the week was to lower the cost of the bridge. Consequently, some alterations were made to lower the cost of a specific bridge to around $200,000, from the extravagant original designed bridge of $260,000, geometric disfigurement and weak spots became visible in testings to show the group the features of the bridge that needed readjustments. The ratio of the cost and strength was much to large for a bridge to be called efficient; as a result, adjustments were made and will be continued to next week to make a better truss bridge. The upcoming week requires major changes and improvements in certain connection joints and more stability in beams, with the creation of triangles, to allow for an increase amount of compression and tension forces. Hoping to increase the overall strength of the bridge, different gussets will be used and more triangular shapes will be incorporated. Some challenges that were clearly encountered was the competition between other competitors. Other groups designed more efficient bridges. It was realized that certain smaller and shorter bridges designed were more efficient in cost and strength. New ideas are being designed and discussed about to improve the decent design already created. 

Reflecting on the past, it was noted that the computer program of West Point Bridge Design was more beneficial. Now it has been realized that the Knex kit is a much more realistic approach in the process of designing and creating a bridge. Although there are many advantages of the program as previously stated in last week's blog post, it has come to conclusion that the kit of Knex pieces has more benefits. The real hands on experience allows a more definite approach in the building process of a bridge. In addition, the limited amount of sizes allows a real world challenge. Real manufactures will not have every size of member beams or joint connectors available because they want to maximize their profitability. Consequently, the thirteen sizes represent the readily available beams or connections. In addition, an actual point and evenly distributed load test can be calculated and seen. Resulting from the two different test allows learners to see the failure points as well. These features mentioned cannot be applied or generated in the computer program West Point Bridge Design as well as the real life like experience with Knex pieces.