Week 5 Assignment: WPBD vs. Knex

During this week, we got our first glimpse at a model bridge made of Knex like those that we will be building in the coming weeks. The design was made by an expert in the Civil, and Architectural field so it was pretty much a model of what the best bridge we could build looked like. We went on to watch a presentation given by Mr. Jay Bhatt (the research librarian) about all the possibilities we have not only at the library, but also on the Drexel library website to research bridge design and construction. During this week our team was given a task to create individual bridge designs on paper so that when we come to class during week 5, we are able to grab Knex and make our bridge. We will find the pros and cons of each group member’s bridge and come up with the best design. This is the design that we will use for our group bridge design in the final competition.

            This week we will be working solely with Knex in class, transitioning from West Point Bridge Design. They differ in that when using Knex we can feel it in our hands and test the strength and tension and compression by bending it and testing it ourselves. We can find where the mistakes are and make repairs by hand using different pieces. We have already discovered (from last class, just by playing around with the pieces) that repairs in real life with the Knex are much more difficult to make than on WPBD. If we must make a repair we have to take it apart and change the pieces, sometimes rebuilding the whole bridge. Overall, building a bridge using Knex will be more of a challenge than the West Point Bridge Designer.

Kelsey McSorley