Bridge Project

Our latest project assigned to us was the bridge. As a group we have to come up with an idea for a struturally sound brige that can hold a total of 20 kg. We are allowed to only use dowel rods and wood glue, and our maximum amount that can be spent is $8. We built a bridge from an idea that was brought about using the West Point Bridge Designer program that our team downloaded. We all came up with basically the same idea for the bridge's structure, and decided to use Pratt Trough Truss idea to construct our bridge. Putting the bridge together did not take that long, but the process in which we had to take to be able to put our bridge together was a little bit time consuming. It takes approximately 24 hours for the wood glue to be completely dry, so that put a damper in being able to build the entire bridge in one day. We ended up building the sides of the bridges, letting them dry, then attaching them on the top and the bottom. Part of the rules for this project was that we had to have a cardboard "road" and a u-bolt attached in the middle of the bridge that we can hang weight off of. So we made our road have a small hill in the middle of it so the u-bolt could be attached properly. The bridge came out very nicely and we are planning on it being able to hold the amount of weight it is supposed to.