Week 5 Blog Post

There are many differences between the West Point Bridge Designer program and the actual construction of KNex. The most obvious difference is the realism in the constructing of KNex. When building with KNex, a physical bridge is created compared to a computer-simulated bridge on WPBD. This KNex bridge can be tested using weights and other methods of real world testing. There is also a difference in that WPBD can indicate the exact area of the bridge that fails and perform hundreds of weight and tension calculations in seconds. This is not as easy when testing a KNex bridge.
There are also many similarities between the two products. Both methods of bridge design use beams and joints to produce a bridge to be tested. Stronger, more expensive pieces can be substituted with weaker, but less expensive pieces and vice-versa. Doing this can save money by placing inexpensive pieces in areas where it isn't as necessary to support such heavy loads. Both end results are tested to hold the maximum amount of weight at the lowest possible cost.
Last week in lab, we began to experiment with KNex and get an idea of how our bridge design will be translated to a physical structure. We tried out many different ideas from our WPBD models and were able to come up with what we think will be a good, strong, inexpensive design. I'm looking forward to getting to work on the final bridge design and to begin testing. This week in lab, we will begin putting together our bridge design with KNex, testing is optional. I think we will make great progress with the design but I doubt we will be ready to test by the end of lab. I'm excited and optimistic.