Week 10

Last week was the week where our final bridge designs were tested, the goal of the all the designs was to have the lowest cost to weight ratio. Our bridge won the competition with a ration of $8,542 per pound. The lab period was used for only the competition this upcoming lab period we'll have a closing discussion of what we did during the term.

I believe that this term was very beneficial towards my major, it helped me consider different situations that I will eventually encounter in my academic as well as my professional career. This simple way of modeling bridges is an easy way of viewing one of the most basic ideas in engineering, trusses. These hollow structures are everywhere, from the crane that is building the new business building to the chair im sitting on. I think that by constantly experimenting with different structures I was able to better understand the forces that are constantly affecting a bridge. I think one of the least beneficial things of the course was the fact that we could only use a simple truss design. I would have enjoyed it if we were able to use arches and hanging bridge designs. This would have been a perfect introductory course on bridges and basics to civil and structural engineering. Other than that I think that this freshman design project was a good experience, I learned a lot about bridges and the way they can be built and can fail.