Week 6

This week, we have drawn sketches of the truss designs and we have been prototyping ton figure out which truss design we are going to use. Blake is going to draw and build the Warren truss design.

Katie is going to draw and build the Baltimore truss design.

Sierra is going to draw and create the Pratt truss design.

We will use these prototypes to figure out of which one is the best choice.

Week 5

This week we started to move our data into graphs. We put the data into charts so it is easier to compare. The following charts are the ones we created today and we will then take that data and analyze it to help make the type of truss we want to use. The following pictures are the types of trusses we tested. The trusses are the side part of the bridge that helps support the bridge.

Week 4

This week we worked on getting the truss design down for our bridge by using the Model Smart software on the computers in Mr. Spiece's room. Model smart is a software that is used to test different truss designs on the computer and it will tell you the strength and weight for each truss design. This is the first official week of testing trusses. We also started working on sketches for the actual bridge design as well. Lastly, we updated our blog. :)

Week 3

This week our team found out what type of bridge we will be building. For this years competition we will be building a cantilever through truss bridge. The picture to the right is what the bridge should look like on paper. This week we started research and our proposal. Also TRAC (the company who puts on the competition) put out the guidelines for this years competition and we looked over them.

Week 2

This week our team had to work on a pitch for our English 10 class. We had to do a semi formal presentation to whoever

Came to our area in the class. We did a PowerPoint presentation. Also, for our pitch Katie brought a MDOT shirt and her bridge from last year.

Week 1

This week we have discussed how we are going to "pitch" our project to our class. We have also started designing our bridge by looking at our past bridge designs. We have two different bridge designs that could be used; one would be a bascule bridge( Draw bridge) while the other would be a floating bridge. We have also started our writing proposal for the project.The writing proposal is usually about about 20-30 pages long. All this week we have updated our blog. :)

We're Team Bob the Builders 2.0
We are made up of Blake Macias, Sierra Coughlin, and Katie Gerhardt and we are going to blog about our journey through redoing our bridge project from our Freshman Year of high school. The bridge project is sponsored by MDOT  every year and is a state wide competition between 9th and 10th graders. Our task is to build a bridge made of only balsa wood and glue that can hold the most weight while weighing the least. If our proposal gets accepted by MDOT then our team goes to Lansing MI to compete against other teams around the state. At the competition, we have to make a presentation that we will present to engineers from across the country and they will judge us. After we present we will then go to the testing room and test our bridge, and they will then tally the scores using the Strength to weight ratio (which you find by dividing the strength of the bridge by the weight of the bridge). The engineers will then choose the winners. 
  We decided to redo our bridge because the last time we did it everyone failed in different ways. Blake didn't even make it to Lansing because his proposal didn't get accepted. Both Sierra and Katie both got disqualified for the bridges not following the specifications. We were all on different teams last year and decided to combine to try to have the best chance of succeeding. 
  To accomplish our goal of finishing the bridge before the competition, we will work on the proposal and presentation and try to finish them before the competition starts, so we will not have to rush at the last minute.