Week 4 Assignment: WPBD

            During this past week we reviewed the submissions for the A1 assignment in which each individual had to submit their own bridge. We talked about what defined a good bridge, and learned that the best bridge was defined as the lowest cost while still being serviceable. The best bridge that was submitted was in the $200,000 range, while most of the other bridges fell in the $300,000-$400,000 range. The rest of the class we worked on our groups individual designs to get the costs down and pick the best design in the end. This is hopefully the design we will use to build our real bridge using Knex. During this coming week members of my group are continuing to work on our bridge design to get the cost down while keeping the design the same but maybe using cheaper materials where it is possible.

            The West Point Bridge Designer is something we have been using for weeks now and have become very comfortable understanding. Overall, we have learned that what we see (in terns of the give of the bridge) is greatly exaggerated. When the truck is driving over the bridge and it is unstable, it dips down, which in real life wouldn’t be as large. If this were to happen on a bridge in real life, we learned, the bridge would dip down at most 1 inch. The program does do a great job with measuring the tension and compression forces however, which would be the same in real life. It also helps because it tells the user which piece in the bridge is having the most trouble so they can figure out where the repairs are needed.