Final

Kent (C block)

Introduction to Engineering was full of laughs, thrill, and hard work. The two projects that I enjoyed most and learned most from were the Bridge, and the Robot. The Bridge focused on the the civil aspect of engineering. Through tedious calculations and intense structural design we built balsa wood bridges. Some bridges were stronger than others, although all were required to hold at least 20 newtons. My design was simple and did not have any structural support on the top, only on the bottom. My bridge held a total of 29.6 newtons which was in the bottom 5 of the class. I did not put an arc on the top because I thought it would add extra weight. I sacrificed weight for structure, which did not end up working out well. My bottom structure and road of the bridge was constructed mostly by different variations of the king post. If I were to do this project again I would create a super structure to balance out my sub structure and add the extra weight. I learned a lot about structural and civil engineering from this project. I learned how a bridge can be more sturdy and what is the best design. I also learned about different kinds of posts, such as the king post.

Another project I learned a lot from was the Robot. For this project we had to build a robot following a instruction pamphlet. This was considered mechanical and computer engineering. The mechanical aspect was educational, but not as much as the programming was. Grant and I built the robot and the programmed it in order to perform simple tasks. For instance follow a line or drive forward. For the final task we had to program the robot to move through a course. I was able to program it to get through the majority of the course about one out of three times. If I were to do this project again I would design the final program so it was able to follow each line, and not move off course. I learned a lot from this project, but the things that stuck out to me was precision. The preciseness of the programs had to be on spot in order to move throughout the course.

This year in Introduction to Engineering has taught me a lot. Thank you very much. Hope you have a great summer.

-Kent