Friday, June 1, 2012

Week 10 Assignment: Term Review


            This past week during class, all of the groups got a chance to test their bridges to see who had the lowest cost to strength ratio. Each group came in with their completed bridge and we all used sand to test how much weight our bridge could hold. Our bridge ended up doing worse than we thought, and only held 9.8 pounds. From each group’s results, the cost to strength ratio was determined and the group with the lowest ratio received extra credit. Now our group’s focus is on the Assignment 4 and working together to create a report of all of our experiences for this term.
            In the beginning of the term we were given a goals list that we were told we would meet by the end of the term. From this goal list, aside from the fact that teamwork was probably the largest part of the class, I learned a whole lot about the design process, physical modeling, and forensic analysis. Each task that we were asked to perform in this class secretly helped us work closer and closer to the goals we set. I think that all the goals we set and everything we did in the lab benefited us in some way or another, nothing stood out to me to be the least beneficial. All of the planning, designing, testing, and analyzing we did will one day help us become better engineers. For me, as a mechanical engineer, the best aspect of this class was the designing and testing process. I hope to work with airplanes one day, testing them and assembling them and making sure everything works the way it is supposed to. I think to improve this course maybe instead of just testing our final bridge once; we should test our bridge then have the opportunity to asses the problems and see what we think we can do to improve the bridge. I felt like when our bridge failed, I really didn’t know what to do in order to fix it and make it stronger.

Kelsey McSorley 

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