Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Week 8

Week 8
         Week 8 lab was really productive for the team for being able to put all members ideas into a final design.  Also it was a great opportunity for the team to test different 2 feet bridge designs that were brainstormed.  We were able to see main weaknesses and strength of each design.  The results from these experimentations will be considered for the design and construction of the final bridge design.
         I had found this engineering design project really interesting and enjoyable.  Each part of the module was has it’s own important significance and has teach me really interesting and important basic knowledge about bridges.  During the first part of the project when we were able to play around with WPBD I was able to see what structures had a successful strength.  Also I was able to play around with the building materials to be able to bring the cost down of the bridge while keeping its strength.  During this process I was able to get a better understanding of what structure designs seem to be more successful.  I learned that triangles do an excellent job distributing forces.  It is important to consider the fact that this are not the only forces a conditions to which a bridge has to survive.  We were then introduced a way to be able to calculate the tension that each member of the bridge.  It is important to mention that each method and program used during this project had their own strengths and limitations.  Finally the most challenging part of this lab was to actually put all of our ideas and knowledge into designing a bridge that would have a good cost vs. strength ratio.  

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