Socha Strikes Again!!!

Our ASCE Professional Advisor Matt Socha gives us a Sac Section plug, and writes up MidPac -- April 25th-26th by the way:

Here Vatos




Guess which one's our professional lunatic, I mean, advisor.

SOUTHEAST!!!

Get ready to rumble in Orlando.

Southeastern Steel Bridgers are set to fly tomorrow at ole Brighthouse Stadium.

Among the interesting parties:

2008 NSSBC Host - Florida Gators
Southern Poly
North Florida
UCF
Tennessee
South Florida
Florida Tech
Florida International
Alabama-Huntsville
Alabama A & M
Embry-Riddle
FAMU/FSU (you need two schools to compete?)
Florida Atlantic
Georgia Southern
Tennessee Tech
Middle Tenn. State
Alabama
Miami
Puerto Rico, Mayaguez
Southern Alabama
Vandy

Should be a great conference, can't wait to hear who won what!

Let me tell you the time...

...about how I was so hungry I ate a bandaid.

The deck welding is coming along faster than expected, Saturday side assembly is still an attainable goal.

Welcome to the Enterprise

WEDNESDAY APRIL 26TH WE GIVE THE INTERVIEW IN THE 1203 LAB.

The local Davis newspaper, the Davis Enterprise, has come out of the blue and are requesting interviews, pictures etc. for an upcoming feature article next Monday. Jessica and Chris will be around come Wednesday, but perhaps any Team members enjoying their time off too much could coordinate with Delicious to get in on the deal...

Look for us!

http://www.davisenterprise.com/

One week...

Finalz iz dun, letz finit da Brizzage!!!

History of Badger Canoe

On YouTube, a beautiful piece of vid work covering Wisconsin Madison's rise to unprescidented Concrete Canoe success:

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3

Captain's Log...

Oh snap! There's gonna be a logrollin' contest at MidPac!!!

By the way...CO's own Jeff Spiro came up with the idea...not bad for a dude from LA.

You'd think this would actually get Humboldt State to come to the Conference for once...maybe $tanfurd will come...hmm...

News from Bruin Country

UCLA discusses their Steel Bridge progress in their Winter Qtr. Newsletter:

http://www.seventy-percent.com/asce/Winter_Newsletter.doc

M.I.T.

MIT looks to get back to the NSSBC this season. Updates here:

http://cee.mit.edu/index.pl?iid=23941

Early Notes to all MidPac Folk

Steel Bridge assembly will be held in the lower level of the Mondavi Center Parking Structure (ie no "damn thermal expansion!"). It's a pretty long structure, there's some natural light that will peak through, but in the event of cloudy weather we're prepared to bring in external lights and shine the ceiling so everybody can see just fine. There's a slight grade to the structure, and the floor is a kind of lightly textured concrete...IT ISN'T POLISHED, so don't worry about piers slipping all over the place like they did at Salt Lake City 2 years ago.

We'll have 2 loading stations with your basic dial gauges doing the measuring. As far as we know 2 weight sets will be there as well, one from Santa Clara, one from Chico...is this correct? Isn't there one from Big Sac as well? Oh well, There Will Be Libres.

Our shop will be open the night before the meeting and before the competition to make as many repairs or last minute MIG or TIG welds as is necessary. We've also got grinders, chisels, a shitty drill press and various fab tools to help you get everything ready. Feel free, if you're running a little behind, to come out and make it on time and use the shop if you need last minute things done before aesthetics judging.

From sources at UCD ASCE, the judging panel may be a little light, but the head judge knows her stuff, so there shouldn't be any major foul ups...so long as we...uh...triple check the scoring eh?

Hope all you in NorCal and Reno can make it, we're looking forward to having everybody on campus for a fun time win or lose!

Word of the warning...Davis cops are a bit stalkish at times, take it easy on the hooch in the Nalgene bottle...or at least, be VERY downlowsy about it.

Hoping the builds are coming to a close very soon!!!

Let's all get stoked in Davis!!!

Green or Black Beer Sir?

Happy St. Paddy's Everybody!


























(anybody who knows Éirinn, knows it's all about dancing leprechauns and pots of gold...that's why so many emigrated to Americay...hahaha...all fun just the same, DRINK UP!)

Lateral Bracing

Double check yourself out there...with a top of deck height set around 2.5' you've got a lot of load relatively far off the ground. Check your bracing...it's not just about passing the lateral test...it's about surviving those 5,2 and 6,1 scenarios.

Keep those connections tight people!

TIG Job

We've commenced the welding of the pins!!! They're shiteloads easier now that we've got a sweet aluminum jig made by the one and only Señorita Deliciosa. Cormac will burn the rest of those in today, and hopefully we'll finish up tigging the OT A.G.S. doves this afternoon as well. Direction is starting to come into play now, so let's make sure we remember that things are symmetrical with some pieces. Be careful, and do it right the first time laddie!

No meeting this weekend. Study hard for finals...it's like Warp Speed here at UC Davis...go go go!

Ecole

This has nothing to do with Steel Bridge, but L'École de Technologie Supérieure, on top of having quite the intricately fabricated Steel Bridge, also has, or has had, one of the most kick ass Mini-Baja crews in the land.

Did you just call me a jive turkey?

Since we are "Semi-Pro" fabricators we're always correcting the mini-mistakes as we go, but this time, things are going pretty damn well. The A.G.S. doves have broken ground, and all that's needed is a bit of an arc on the straight males. A new sort of double chucked pipe fuser in the Ag Shop is supposed to cut our TIG welding time by 500%...uh, so, HELL YES we're gonna give it a go so long as Tom Bell has got a few minutes.

OT welding is pretty much done...though we've got to weld on the bones and the A.G.S. doves into place when they're done, but the ties are all in, and we're seeing what the frame looks like up above. It looks hot, not like that crappy Paris Hilton hot, I mean like NASA re-entry hot, we're talking fireballs people. Jeff continues to push himself and the assemblies are flying together everyday, cutting precious seconds with each batch of runs. It is encouraged to all potential Assembly Team members to come in, if only for 30 minutes, get some assemblies and practice. It's a great stress reliever, and it will help you retain skills better rather than coming out only on Saturday for 3 hours. Good luck with the upcoming finals week, hopefully we'll be nearing completion on the tail-end of it. Get ready to rumble!

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Love me Sexy!

Practice!

Great job everybody on Saturday...practice only makes you faster, and it's showing. High five to Jeff for coming in on Sunday to get some extra assembly work in, he's already cut his yard time by roughly 150%. Well done! Alright Chrolympians...it's another week of Tiggin' and Millin'. Let's get it done.

A connection is made!!!

We've got our first working slip fit OT connection. We'll have to see how we bolt it to alleviate the 1/32" hinging on the one side, but 75% of them are Rock Solid...not stealing your ole' thunder UW boat crew.

A great week...so far!!!

While tomorrow's shop and practice runs should seal up another great week...we had a great workweek as well. Cormac was fusing like gangbusters all week, and with a little help from Daret this morning, the OT and it's special sections are completely TIGged. The Bridge is starting to look like NASA's own, Gene Krantz would be so proud.

We're running out of things to precision mill, which usually only means one thing: We need to finish all the hard precision milling on the fancy connections. This Bridge is ack-basswards compared to what we've done before, so it's like working in reverse of the reverse. The hardest connections...aka the A.G.S. dovey dove doves are going last, but it's all good. Now that we're practiced up in the Student Shop, the hardest stuff is coming at the right time.

This next week, we'll make sure that everything is in order for the DK Tigging...the welds are small, but the alignment needs to be money or will be leaning like a cholo. Hopefully Cormac nurses his sore throat for next week, because we've also got a fixa' dealie bobber to do on the center 4 CD's...Designer Estupido!!!

No worries. Keep on hoppin' mates, and don't let any bringer downers deter you from the task at hand!

Minnesota Media

Little news blurb here that aired before the Midwest Regional. Great job Gophers. The stiffness was there!

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http://kstp.com/article/stories/S362430.shtml?cat=1

Student Powered

Straight up.

Iowa State has worked hard and it showed in Iowa City.

ISU STEEL BRIDGE