Bridge Project: Week Two

Our team was faced with the task of constructing a bridge with limited materials according to given dimentions. We also had to build a car that would drive accross the bridge with three bricks, turn, and drive back.

First we started learning about how the structure of a bridge can change the stability of it. We practiced by following instructions for a paper bridge, testing it after every change by seeing how many metal nuts it could hold.

Next we used a bridge simulator to see how we could create a strong and stable bridge by making adjustments and learning what was best by viewing a test animation.

Once we found a structure we thought was most stable we began to plan it out for our wooden bridge. As for the car, we started out by making one out of cardboard tubes. But for the real one, we assemled a metal car using a kit and programmed it by using the guide for remote controlled motion.

We also learned about the calculations involved with civil engineering, and found the stress and strain with Young's Modulus for the cross sectional area of a part of our bridge.

After the bulk of building, planning, and calculating it was time to test the bridge, and reinforce parts we found to be weak.

 

Second Week: Civil Engineering

 Team Name: Pringles
First Project (June 27, 2016)

This week, we moved on from Electrical Engineering to Civil Engineering. A Civil Engineer is an engineer who designs and maintains roads, bridges, dams, and other similar structures. This week we focused on buildling bridges. Our objective is to build a balsawood bridge with limited supplies that will support a robot and three bricks. We will need to make and program said robots too.

This is the first project we built. We made this to discover how to make our bridge stronger with the same materials.

 Our second project is to build a car using our knowledge of electrical circuits.

Next, we took a little break on bridge building and got together with students from the Architecture course to build a habitat for an egg. Our objective is to make a structure with a work space and a bedroom that will survive a six story drop and prevent the egg from cracking. Through this experience, we learned even more ways to make our structure stronger and more stable with a limited amount of materials. We continued to build our bridge and our robot over the course for the next few days.

This week we also went to Hyperion, a sewage treatment plant. We learned how the plant treats the water and we learned more about where all our waste is going.

Finally, we finished our bridge and have moved on to testing!

Published on February 25th, 2018

Last updated on June 17th, 2022