For a midterm project each student was required to design and build a small scale wooden bridge out of balsa wood. The bridge had to be able to hold 20 newtons of force over a gap between two tables. We had a set amount of materials and glue to build our bridge and had to design it based off of what we had learned about civil engineering and bridge design. To design or bridge we used engineering paper to draw out each section of our design. To build the bridge we used razor blades to cut the wood and then pins to map out the pieces to the drawing then glue them together. For final testing each bridge was suspend over a gap with a special weighing device attached to a bucket of sand. The amount of sand was increased until cracking could be heard, then we recored the weight then added more until they broke for fun.
I designed my bridge using a system of triangles similar to the isogrid shape however instead of using a system of circles to attach each beam, I notched each connecting peace and attached them at intersecting points. My bridge weighed around 15 ounces and held close to 30 pounds. It was 700% efficient.
For this project i found that time to build was stretched thin and that may more exact cut and cutting tool would have helped the success of my bridge. Although I enjoyed the project very much it was, at times, frustrating.
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