Progress

Week 7

During this week we painted half of the bridge with the help of an art student. We also worked on the presentation for week 8.

Week 6

    We finished up our two CLT bridges during lab this week. The next step is testing on of the two bridges. This method is not 100% foolproof considering their are a lot of variables in each bridge. For example, each bridge was built by somebody else. Breaking one of these is just to come to a valid estimate.

Week 5

    During the course of week 5 our team came down to the innovation and finished up our CLT bridges. The design of the truss bridge was finalized and we started to cut pieces for the design. The building of the truss bridge will be completed by week 6. We have two CLT bridges one for testing and one for the final product.

Week 4

    In lab during week four each of us came up with our own design for the CLT bridge. The objective was to see who's bridge had the best design by testing it to failure. Each of our members started by drawing designs then we proceeded by building them. Within the next two weeks we plan to have our first tress bridge built to test.

Week 3

    This week we got right into cutting. In the innovation studio we utilized the dremel that we recently got training for to cut the dimensions we needed for our bridge. Once we cut enough wood to make three models we talked about what the plan was for next week. We decided each of us are going to make our own CLT design and build it during lab to see who has the best idea. Behind the scenes we have been visiting various shops around Drexel (machine and wood shops) to see the resources we had available.

 

Cool cats cuttin' CLT

Week 2

    At the start of week two we met in the innovation studio during lab time and brainstormed more ideas. We tested some of our designs but they were not built perfectly like we need them. Further along in the week our team members met over lunch to discuss the next steps of the project. Our designs were finalized during this meeting and we decided what our next steps are. At the start of next week we plan on cutting the Popsicle sticks to the appropriate dimensions.

Crew working hard (Not pictured the other two getting safety training)

Week 1

    During week one our team was tasked with designing two bridges. One of the bridges tasked to build is a truss bridge. We researched designs to come up with a few of our own. The second type of bridge we needed to learn about is built with cross-laminated timber (CLT). We noticed that this type of material was very strong but more expensive relative to wood.

    After the brainstorm process began our team came up two truss designs that we plan on building and testing before the final testing stage during week 10.

Rectangle Truss Design

Arch Truss Design