Corn and Good wrastlin'

"Well, I'm off to Iowa to get a look at what has been the nation's best Steel Bridge Conference in recent years. I've a feeling Lakehead and NDSU will be neck and neck, but maybe Minnesota and Iowa State will get in the mix. Adios California, hello frozen yellow vegetables...and frozen huevos."

-Matt

Seismic Design Competition Results

Straight from New Orleans!













http://www.eeri.org/news/meetings/08AM/#sdc
http://peer.berkeley.edu/students/Seismic.html

UC Davis takes home the
Popov Award for Structural Innovation!!!

Go Ags!
...














1st Place Overall: University of California, San Diego
2nd Place Overall: University of Texas, Austin
3rd Place Overall: University of Buffalo

Great job all!

updated link( 3/2/08)

LA Tech

No, not Los Angeles, Louisiana Tech has some new sparkle to their ASCE page as they prepare for the Deep South in Baton Rouge.

http://www.latech.edu/tech/orgs/asce/

Va Tech Looks to Improve

Following the tragedy, Virginia Tech showed up at Northridge and did extremely well. They'll be solid contenders in 2008. Hokie Up!

VT Hokies

MIZZOU

A nice recap and a look at the Team who will try to regain the Mid-Con Championship in '08.

http://asce.civil.missouri.edu/htm/teams.htm

Upstate Kangaroos

Word is that SUNY Canton is already done with fabrication and has begun practice. They don't compete in the Upstate New York until April 14th. Yowzas!

CSUS new pics!

Big Sac has got some great new pics up from their 2007 SBT season.

http://gaia.ecs.csus.edu/~asce/gal_mp_2007.html

And for any Lafayette Leopards seeing these, yes, Ms. Gilkerson was our Head Judge and will be again here in Davis this year.

Recaps from Turkey!

KOU MOSTAR

More information on the school here Link

Some vids:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaxgfC17tVM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7R57_GbFIM

On and on and on...

Daret has been getting some timely welds in during the week. We're getting close to the point where we can set up the horizontal system assembly. Still a lot of detail and welding to take care of, but we can do it!

This Saturday we'll use the shop hours for CNXN work and we'll run more construction practice with the old bridge.

Saturday Machining Rules

Another Good Saturday, finishing assignment after assignment thanks to the 6 hours we get now on Saturdays. We welded up some doves to the CD's, about 8 down, and 16 to go, but it's a good chunk. Also, made a nice little find in the boneyard as we're currently using a very solid piece of old rusty girder as a flat surface. While the Tinius is being used to teach the minds of 104L, we got ole' rusty!

Also got some preliminary construction practice in, hopefully all those prospective builders know how much time and effort it's gonna take to tinker the sequence down to sub-4 minutes.

Jessica and Matt will try to jig up the outer OT' s on Sunday and get some tacs on 'em. We're shooting for a 3/17 finish, so we'll have to stay focused. Daret permitting during the week, we should be on time we really stick to it.

Let the creativity flow people -- legends are made not born.

Let's keep it up!

E-Week, while rainy, was still a lot of fun. Big groups of young kids and a few engineering students had some questions for us. At least the incredible paint job for the 2K7 Bridge was on display. Big congrats to that paint job go to Rishi, CQ, Jeff and Jadams. Also thanks to those who made their appearences for the E-Week displays...Mar, CQ, Jeff, Delicious, Alex, Jadams and Leticia, who we want to see a lot more of, managed to come out on her 21st birthday and support the Team.

Woo-hoo! Now back to business. With the advent of Saturday Shop Hours, will be getting so much done today and tomorrow. Still plenty of holes here and there to mill out, as well as various precision mill jobs that need to be taken out. We'll weld some CD doves on Saturday as well, no Tinius beam, but the Maroney Aluminum should do the trick for those members. Hopefully Joe and Faiyaz can make so we can get some straight MIG's on 'em (no offense Delicious, ha ha ha).

Construction walk-throughs will commence on Saturday as well, anybody not in the shop who shows up will work with the 2005 Bridge with the 2008 construction site and go through the motions without any bolts. A basic procedure is needed before we start breaking ice on the Venus.

Until Saturday...ThunderAgs hooooooooooooo!

UCI Blog

The University of California, Irvine (the sweet paint job from the 2007 NSSBC) appears to have a blog up. Don't know why it took so long to notice this. Irvine, Irrrrrvine, welcome to Irvine...huh huh huh...

http://ucisteelbridge.blogspot.com/

New vid up from 2002

Texas A & M Aggies going at it in the Kohl Center on the University of Wisconsin, Madison campus. Video was taken late June, 2002.

dig those helmets!!!

E-Week

It looks like mama nature won't give us our time on the Quad today, but we've still got a good three morning hours to show off in front of Bainer tomorrow. Hopefully, we can recruit some new blood and spark some new interest in our project for '09. AND, since the captains don't seem to want to step up to the plate one more time in '08, we could get some new folks in as possible assembly team members...which would be perfect timing since we're planning our first construction walk-throughs this Saturday.

From the fabrication shop, we continue to pound out connection pieces, and precision milled lengths. There's always something and unless we get the Tinius beam back for this Saturday, we'll be without welding jobs for the next two weeks. No big worries, just a shift in focus. We also managed to find a 48" clamp at the Home Depot for the lengthwise DK Female jig on the long pieces. Yay yay, crisis averted.

Quick reminder to all on what we're shooting for:




Come on Aggies, get up and go!!!

In 5, 4, 3, .., ..

Thanks to Best Buy we're up and rolling again on the camcorder. Friggin' thieving bastards, hope those dudes get caught.

UTSA write up

3rd Place at the 2008 Tex-Mex. Not too shabby...

Link

2007 NSSBC Recap Vid

Missed this one...

From CSUN? Univ. of Utah apparently...

2007 NSSBC

Sripatum University

Short vid from Thailand...maybe Bobby's having an impact!

Blue Hens Rock

A montage from 2007 of The University of Delaware's National bid campaign. Quite the road trip it was...

UDel Blue Hen Steel Bridge 2007 (1 of 6)

More blurbage...

...about the University of Texas.

Hook 'em

"Research"

We've got a test section rigged for tensile ripping. It's for peace of mind really, but we all need a lot more of that eh?

Also, new pics of the progress to come on the UC Davis ASCE website. Hopefully a few candid shots have made the cut, but it doesn't really matter 'cause we're all sexy bitches!!!

Wowzers!

Unbelievable weekend everybody. Special thanks to Alex, Chris 1, Chris 2, Jessica 1, Jessica 2, Jeff, King Rishi and Joe for coming on Saturday and Sunday. We've got the DK's in 3D mode finally and now it's just fine tuning all our connections and hopefully start TIG welding next Saturday Bill and Daret willing. Filthy Phil also made an appearance and although we weren't quite ready for all the TIG work, he gave us another mechanical's insight on the road ahead. We'll try to get him back in next weekend.

We also put a pimpin' paint job on the 2007 bridge. It's really poppin' Chrome and Blue like never before (well silver and blue really). Ready for E-Week recruitment baby, bring on the freshies and sophies.

Still to do in the shop...

Female DK Connection fix (thanks Joe)

DK Male Seats

Precision Mill Outer OT'

Precision Mill Pier C's

Make sure we have enough cross braces for OT Frames. (4.5")

CD doves, ~1/32 to 1/16 underengagement preferred

A.G.S. doves on OT (3/4" tall ones alligned in jig)

Star shims for DK females, about three ought to do it.

Begin Cutting Lateral Pieces

Cut/Custom Fit Outer DK pieces

Pier/dk Cnxn Seats

Lathe project for Outer OT Cnxns

...probably more after that...(geez ya think?)

Immediate welding in the forseeable future...

MIG:

OT Frames

Pier Lats (custom boxes to length)

TIG:

DK Cnxns

Pier C's

Crank to OT Frame

Outer OT's

Keep on keepin' on Chrome-O's. No rest for the weary.

(don't forget to study)

(whistle whistle)

All's business here. Phil's coming in on Saturday to TIG the outer OT's, and possibly the C Piers if there's time (there won't be)

Here's a little TechnoViking for morale... (though I believe he's German, I think Viks would kill their own if they saw one of them doing this Etard dance, he's pretty friggin' yolked though)

University of Texas CE Writeup

1st in all ze categories. Very impressive indeed...spelled Gainesville wrong though...

Link Hither