Week 6: Team Update

The previous week allowed many improvements to a bridge design, out of Knex pieces, because the majority of the lab was dedicated to allow students to experiment with different types of designs. At first, a basic yet expensive design with triangles and squares was created as seen in figure 1. 

Figure 1

This design cost over $275,000 and was weak at many connection joints. The cost was too extravagant which resulted in major changes to the basic geometric shape of the overall bridge. Different gussets were eventually discovered and acknowledged for different and unknown uses. The gussets that could be connected to similar gussets could withstand larger amounts of tension and compression forces. This resulted in an increase amount of those specific gussets in the design of the bridge. As the experimentation with the Knex pieces continued, new ideas and methods to increase the ratio of the cost to strength increased. The final design created can be seen below in Figure 2 after different gussets and ideas to lower the cost by changing the members was used and factored in. 

Figure 2

The upcoming week will have one major goal which is to further lower and improve the ratio for the most efficient bridge design among the other competitors. To have a functional truss is sufficient but will not win in a real life bid for a job or contract. This course shows how a real life situation can be applied to class modules.