Three main buildings

Bridges Photo Updates

Bridge Update

Here are a few pics of tonight's bridge construction.  More are to come!!!

Drexel C.O.R.E Project Overview

For our Freshman Design Project, we are creating a theoretical living-learning community for graduate students and PhD's. We are calling the community Drexel C.O.R.E, which stands for Collective Opportunities for Research and Education. The community will feature three distinct areas for research and discovery: Engineering, Medical, and Arts. Additionally, the community will have a plaza that  contains buildings for recreation and leisure as well as areas for living. These four sections of the community will be connected by a bridge that meets in the center of the city. The bridge will therefore literally unite the different concentration areas and symbolically encourage the spread of ideas. In terms of deliverables, we will be designing a scale model of the bridge out of Erector sets. The bridge will then span a scale model of the city.

We have researched the philosophies behind communities that are centered around a common ideal and have implemented these ideas into our own design. The basis for our community is the belief that learning should be inspired and should span multiple concentration areas. Consequently, our entire design is based upon the idea that by creating a community that is conducive to research, inhabitants will be motivated to make advancements in their fields. The layout of the city is such that inhabitants can focus on their own concentration areas and also be inspired by the research of those in other concentration areas. By designing the city in this way, we will create a positive environment where knowledge is spread and discoveries are made.

In order to complete the project, we have decided upon hard and soft constraints for our bridge and city design. We are going to make accurate scale models of the bridge and city that are also aesthetically pleasing. Additionally the bridge will have to be able to hold a certain amount of weight. In order to make sure that our bridge is a realistic model, we are researching different bridge types and constructing our bridge accordingly. We will be presenting our model at the end of the term and will also be explaining the theory behind our city.

Reflection: Katy

Working on our Freshman Design project throughout this term has been challenging, frustrating, and ultimately, rewarding. At the beginning of the term it was difficult to see how the K’nex bridge competition was related to our final design project. Looking back, I can see now how everything we learned in the first five weeks prepared us to take on our own project.

               It has been so exciting to see how our project has evolved from a concept to a feasible design. We definitely had an uphill battle, from convincing Dr. Aktan to let us work on our Drexel C.O.R.E project  to incorporating a bridge design to finding an advisor last-minute. However, it was completely worth all the struggle and hard work to have a project that we are proud of. Our initial concept has become a scale model that is influenced by consideration of structure and aesthetics and serious research. During the K’nex competition, we learned first-hand the importance of meeting all constraints, and as a result we have been very careful to not overlook any details in our final project. Throughout this course we have all grown as a team and as engineers.

Reflection: Bader

This course has had its ups and downs but one thing is certain: my group was solid and hard working throughout the entire experience. The group of individuals i am working with make me feel productive and active as they all have a passion for the goal we were accomplishing. Overall i learnt a lot about the internal structure of bridges and the general infrastructure of these kinds of buildings. Most importantly we saw the idea go from concept to CAD to reality and seeing that bridge go up against physics and actual weight was very insightful. We also had a passion for our C.O.R.E portion of our project and although it is hard to find a project that is worth accomplishing we have the support of our professors, T.A’s and our advisor. They have helped us understand the gravity of our project and to help us reach our goal. Overall this has been a great experience, and i have learnt a lot about infrastructure and structure theory.

Reflection: Melissa

   At the beginning of the term when this class first started, I was very confused. I had no idea that it was different from the other engineering lab sections and I felt that details were poorly communicated. After a couple of weeks, the communication between the professors and students definitely approved and I felt that more people were on the same page.

                The first five weeks was focused on the bridge competition with the K’NEX. I really enjoyed this part of the course. Throughout my freshmen year I have not really done anything that relates to my major, civil engineering, so I really enjoyed learning about bridges.  Over the past couple of weeks we have been working on our freshmen design project. I wish we would have had more time to work on our design projects because I think we could have made our project a lot more detailed. Overall, I really enjoyed this class and liked that we were able to focus on our majors.

Reflection: Rikki

Going through these last ten or so weeks has been quite the journey, but overall I think we as a group have grown into a cohesive and hardworking team.  We as a whole have faced our challenges throughout the semester, but overall I feel we have come out on top.  Our design project has come a long way.  It was first, a mere simple idea, and now it has grown into a tangible piece of inspiration.  As we develop the bridge for testing this week I am confident that by the time we present our project in week ten the bridge aspect of our project will be complete and will tie our entire theme of a place to collectively collaborate on knowledge together.  I have really enjoyed working with my group mates.  They have each brought something different and unique to the table, and we have grown into our own little family. 

As for our actual class, I have enjoyed this semester overall.  The K'NEX bridge competition proved to be an interesting endeavor, and I feel that as a group we learned a lot about the many elements that go into designing a bridge and the mechanics to weight distribution throughout a bridge.  It is in that gained knowledge that we pressed on and continued to work with bridge building.  Although we chose to move away from K'NEX and work with Erector instead.  Dr. Aktan and Ben have taught us a lot about what it takes to manage our own project.  Especially in the aspect of determining scope, parameters, and the overall elements that need to be defined when building a pedestrian bridge.   This experience has been one that I will never forget, and I plan to apply the knowledge I have gained through this class to my future experiences. 

Reflection: Mark

I have been very happy with our class this term. I enjoyed working on our Lilliputen bridge. While working on the bridge I learned how to use a number of tools in designing the bridge. Using these tools ahead of time made building the actual bridge much faster and more efficient. Also, I feel like we got much more in depth as far as the design process goes.

               My favorite part of this term has been the final project. Working with my group has been great. Everyone has really believed in the project and I feel like our final product will reflect that fact. I feel like we all brought our own set of skills to the table and contributed greatly to the whole. I really saw how important it is to have a group leader as well. Without someone to coordinate all the tasks nothing would ever get done. The only regret I have is that we didn’t have more time to work on the final project.

Page Photo

Updated Progress

Over the past two weeks we have had our ups and downs as a group regarding our freshmen design project. We have made a lot of progress in the past week. Last Wednesday we were able to secure an advisor, Professor Ellis. Since then we have done a lot of research on different styles of bridges and different communities that may be similar to the one we are designing. Bader has succeeded in creating a semi-rough sketch of the community on AutoCad. It displays the community as a whole in two dimensions with a rough design of the bridge that will connect the buildings. The AutoCad sketch can be viewed on this website. Right now we are at a bit of a standstill awaiting the arrival of the erector pieces that we plan to use to build our bridge with. 

New Project: Drexel C.O.R.E

Drexel C.O.R.E is the Collective Opportunities for Research and Education is a centralized community based on an atom. The purpose of said community is to promote knowledge and research through lifestyle in a healthy and productive burst of architecture, science, and art.

Original Atom Design: this is currently the underlying base and foundation of the city.

 Combining them all to create an atmosphere that is a benefactor to progress. While the original idea was to design the entire city, we have decided to make the main project about a bridge, that way we can implement our knowledge from our initial bridge project. There are 3 main buildings in the outskirts of the community, the bridge will connect these three buildings while unifying the entire community in a smooth and aesthetic nature.
 Pre-bridge idea for city:

Original bridge without main bridge; with bridge superposed on top.

Our hard constraints for the bridge:

1. The bridge must connect to the third floor of each of the three main buildings.
2. The center of the bridge must be self-supporting.
3. The bridge must be able to support at least 15 pounds in various places, but especially the center. This constraint will be modified as the bridge comes into construction.

Testing:

1. The uppermost part of the bridge cannot be over 40 feet tall.
2. The section of bridge connected to the plaza must touch to the ground on angle.

Soft constraints:

1. The bridge must be convenient to walk both under and over.
2. The bridge must be aesthetically pleasing. 

The following are concept drawings of the bridge and/or the buildings:

Concepts for connecting buildings to bridges

Concept design for the buildings

Original drawing pre-color

Bridge center and leg concept

Bridge from medical and art buildings to the center plaza

Design Development

As the K'NEX Bridge Competition comes to a close our group has begun working on our next big project.  We are now beginning to plan and brainstorm our Freshman Design Project, which is a project we have proposed ourselves.  We are in the process of finding an advisor to oversee our project, but we are going ahead with our planning anyway.  Will provide more information regarding our project design details as we come to further to making our detailed decisions. 

week 2 reflection

During the final testing of the bridges in the competition, our bridge held up 20 lb's with no problem and Professor Aktan pointed out that it was very sturdy and the design was strong however there was a point where the bridge was weakest and that was the "ankles" of the piers, although that weakness was contrasted and supported by the wide bases of the piers themselves.
Overall we did not place first, however we did have one of the more efficient bridges. We were penalized for not meeting the specified height requirements because they were okay last week and we didn't change them. This added to our costs. All in all it was a very successful bridge and very insightful when it came to understanding structure and their purpose and physical costs.
 Our group improved their speed when setting up which decreased costs and the bridge design was much more sturdy in terms of internal infrastructure as opposed to simply having solid exterior form.

Week 1 Bridge Reflection

After extensive group work throughout the week we prepared our bridge for competition.  The competition was broken up into various parts: Inspection & Piece Count, Timed Assembly, Measurement & Weight,  and Weighted Test Trials.  Our results were as follows.  Total piece count was under the 400 piece limit.  The way we chose to assemble our bridge on the platform given was not as fast as we had anticipated, and our group was one of the slowest assemblies out of the entire class.  The bridge met the height requirements with ease, weighed about 900 grams, and all of our per-fabricated pieces were legal for use in competition.  When it came time for actual testing, our bridge, to our surprise, did hold the weight like we had tested previously (Bridge we tested held close to 30 lbs).  The method used by the instructors to implement the weight on the bridge differed from our own method which ended up with very different results.  Originally we tested the bridge with a wooden plank with the weights on top, thus evenly distributing the weight along the bridge.  The instructors' method consisted of a piece of cardboard with disk weights placed on top.  This method concentrated all the weight onto the middle of the bridge, which was technically the weakest point.  After this "failure," we decided to make some necessary modifications to further optimize our bridge.  Our bridge was retested at the end of class and was able to hold the 20 lbs successfully.

For the second round of competition, our bridge will be more efficient all around.  We are using our experience in the first round along with visual analysis software to minimize the amount of stress placed on each point in the bridge in hopes to maximize efficiency.  Out of this experience our group learned many new things.  First we learned that just because we tested our bridge one specific way doesn't mean that that is how the instructors would carry out the testing.  In a real life application, a bridge is put through serious testing before actual construction because if a bridge were to fail for any reason there would be dire consequences. A functional bridge simply cannot fail. Second, we learned that incorporating different combinations of connections can seriously alter the cost of the bridge. In the second round of competition, we plan to focus on minimizing cost while maximizing strength. Finally, we learned how to better our teamwork skills by implementing each others' specific strengths into the various aspects of our bridge.  Hooray for teamwork :) Peace, Love, Engineering <3

Sincerely,

Rikki & Katy

Cost Efficiency Changes

Discussion of how changing simple parts without changing the overall strength of the infrastructure will help us reduce costs

First Attempt

A very successful first attempt and team collaboration effort on the first bridge construction:

Although it was a successful first attempt, we continued adding weights to our bridge to test its limits and found that it can withstand 30 lb's of weight before collapsing. Also, many notes were made where the same design durability could be achieved with a more cost effective approach including segment usage, segment purpose and piece replacement. 

construction

building the piers/towers

Adjusting measurements

CAD modeling and analyzing

Although the CAD model wasn't implemented exactly, it was still useful for visualizing what adjustments were needed and how we would adjust them.

Make CAD adjustments

Using a Tablet/Sketchbook Pro and Sketchup CAD to create adjustments

near completion

The workstation

design #1 based off of concept models

Design one successfully holding up 20+ lb.'s of weight

Stress seems to dissipate into the towers which was as predicted and designed for

Successful bridge design #1

New Concept Design video up

Welcome

Welcome to our blog,
We are a group of engineering students at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Our Engineering project involves analyzing and studying the mechanics and functions of a working bridge and using what we learn to build our own scaled model of a bridge. This blog will be used to document our progress while doubling as a tool for us to review and learn from our own documentation. The blog also allows for easy access and easy sharing, so please enjoy.