Week 1

We've got a ton of recruitment and public relations events to prep for next week. Especially the new student Ice Cream Social. We'll display the 2006 bridge along with all associated hardware out by Kemper Hall. Also, design will continue today -- all those who've been away for the summer should get up to speed or at least start reading the rules. Next Monday 9/30 or Wenesday 10/2 we'll have our first SBT officers meeting - need to set goals for the 2007-2008 year (besides the obvious). Let's get the ball rolling for real now folks. Time to ram it home!!!

Stewie Griffin: God, all this work keeping people from having sex, now i know how the Catholic church feels! Za ziiing!

Mtg. Wed. 9/26

Delicious, Shortie McShort Short, King Rishi and Mr. Ike Turner will be meeting in the 1203 Bainer Loft at 4 p.m. to discuss the opening weeks of fall quarter. Wednesday 9/26.

Edit 9/26/07: We'll be meeting on the 3rd Floor of EUIII as originally planned.

Until then...keep on rockin' in the free world.

9/19 cancelled, New Design concepts

Hey y'all, in light of Miss Delicious burning herself out last night prepping a no doubt flawless presentation for the Roberts-Gerwick Conference, we'll cancel tonight's meeting to let her sleep.

Two new design concepts will get in the mix tomorrow or Friday:

1. We'll try 'Overdeck V 1.0' concepts incorporating more overall depth at the loaded elevation.
2. We'll also try the 'Twin Dongs' truss concept, which should provide more stability up top.

Mtg. Wed. 9/19

We'll meet in EUIII this Wednesday at about 4:30 p.m. Going to discuss 2007-2008 goals, what we need to accomplish these next 2 months, and do some advanced planning for MIDPAC 2008 Steel Bridge.

New Looks, Mtg. Thursday 9/6

We'll have a meeting Thursday night at 6:00 p.m. in 1203 Bainer Hall. We'll try some newer ideas, things that may or may not be easy to fabricate, but we should analyze them to see if the philosophy has the numbers to back it up. Construction estimates are still being thought out. Let's keep ramming it home people!

Recycle

We're going to set up a simple SAP deck startup file and rerun all pertinent bridge selections up 'til now so we don't get any more conflicting analytical numbers. Friggin' SAP, always helping us maintain quality control. After the checks on our previous numbers, we'll start to try structural additions on the deck and/or anywhere else we can think of.

Awwww...

The wedding was beautiful! Best of luck to Frank and Karen in the future. Have fun in Greece!

Wednesday

This Wednesday we'll analyze some different style bridges. Basically geometry changes on trusses, we'll also get a sense for axial and bending loads across the span at best case (1,6) and worst case (6,1) loadings. Construction analysis will continue to progress.

In the meantime, just keep on rockin', NO IDEAS BARRED!

Alumni News

This weekend, 2004 Chrome Ollie alumni and welding extraordinaire Karen Lam is getting married to 2003-2004 University of Michigan Steel Bridge alumni Frank Duff in Frankenmuth, MI. Yes, they met at a Steel Bridge Competition, 2004 Nationals in Golden, CO.

Congratulations Frank and Karen!

New Style

On to the next batch of bridges...these ones are done for now.

Let's tinker...

Presenting to the Big Bridge Cats...

We've been officially invited to speak during lunch at the Roberts/Gerwick Memorial California Bridge Conference in Sacramento. Our event will take place on Wednesday, September 19th, from 11:45am - 1:15pm. We will display the 2005 bridge and/or the 2007 bridge. To give a clear presentation we will probably need at least two speakers, though Delicious could probably do the thing herself. Above all we'll need a crew of at least 3 people to set up the bridges for presentation. Perhaps a cleaning and aesthetic party will be needed for the 2007 bridge. The 2005 bridge still looks cherry, so no worries there. Also, we'll need transport to Sac. The bridges will be encased in 4 large boxes. If anybody has a truck, or at least a lot of trunk space, then bring it on out, otherwise we'll have to get a department truck. The event will take place at the Holiday Inn, 300 J Street in Sac.

http://www.roberts-gerwick-conference.org/

Construction Analysis

It's so damn difficult to get an idea on how fast these bridges can be assembled.

You got sequences heavy on 1 member assemblies.
You got sequences trying to utilize all 3 member assemblies.
You've got barges, 1 or 2.
You've got coordination between barge(s) and the the banks.
You've gotta keep all hands occupied, not just the barges.
You've gotta mind the floodway.
You've gotta keep those bolts minimal, or do you just keep it straight forward and work the 3 member assemblies.

Ughhh, it's a headache.

At this point, designing a bridge with the most viable construction options may be the best bet for a goot economy.

Right now, we'll just get a rough idea of how many good options there are for each bridge.

Then we'll strip down efficiency into primal components and dig in for a few weeks coming up with the best structures.

...in the meantime of all of this, we'll see if we can work the "overdeck" into the equation. It'll be tougher to fab, but it may prove too efficient to pass up.

Go Ags!

First Analysii

Initial results were not astounding, the 4 bridges behaved relatively in the same matter. There is an obvious structural similarity with each bridge type, and the subtle differences between them didn't make that much difference. Today we will get a solid construction index for each bridge, talk some other possible designs, and then decide how we want to proceed with design progression (i.e. geometry tricks, different decks, "overdecks" etc.).

Side note: Detroit Lions vs. Cincinnati Bengals tonight at Ford Field. Former Aggie WR Tony Kays (#13) is playing for the Bengals while Former Aggie QB J.T. O'Sullivan (#14) is going to get a great deal of playing time for Detroit as he's battling Dan O for the backup QB spot behind Kitna.





Go
Sully

This is DAVIS!

As we continue to gather our forces at the entry to the Hot Gates, we are analyzing our attack and defense plans as we go. Tuesday, 8/7, we will analyze 4 of our basic designs in SAP 2000 v. 10. We also have geometric variatons of each design along with one new one, lower in profile, that we will get into after our initial results. Weight, average deflection across 2 or 3 different loading scenarios, and other factors such as construction index will be considered for each design. The Persians don't stand a chance against our spears and determination.

PREPARE FOR GLORY!

Analysii

Me hankkia formuloida neljä emäksinen peli kirjake , joka ainoa -lta heidät has by muuttaa että me toukokuu hankkia jotta sisu jotta koska -lta hieman muuttaa lastaus käsikirjoitus ja kaivata ajaksi jäykistyä ( ei sytytin ) peli. Aikoinaan me panna alku- runo we'll asiakassuhde eri aikoa joten että he aari enemmän constructable. Jäljessä että , me jälkisäädös ajatella -lta telapölkyt jotta edistyä dekki esitys , koska kummuta koska jokin kansirakenteet jalkeilla edellä. Tokko paikalla on ainoa asia että me osata jokseenkin se on kuinka jotta kasata bridge-peli joutuin. Me jälkisäädös arastella jotta meidän guns nyt kuluva höystää ja johtua rikki ampuva. Sisu Ags!

Tuesday July 31, 2007

Faiyaz, Alex, Delicious and Matt discussed constructability of all the basic options given the new construction site and the option of barges. We'll analyze at least one bridge on Thursday, August 2nd in EUIII. Until then, keep working on those AutoCAD wireframes.

"If you're all brains and have no vision then that means you suck"

Oye Chromo Va

Design Session #1: July 26, 2007

Attendance: Jessica Revell, Alex Wong, Faiyaz Mohammed, Matt Turner.

We talked about the basics of the rules, the new deck requirements, basic maximum profile dimensions, construcability concerns. We nailed down 8 solid designs, but split them into 4 different basic designs and we'll work on them accordingly. The goal for Tuesday July 31st in 1203 Bainer is to come up with member configurations on each design and show how each will be constructable. Then Matt will take us through a AutoCAD 3D wireframe construction on the lab computer. After which we'll analyze our first design either on Tuesday or next Thursday. Let's keep ramming it home people.

2008 Rules

They're out....check accordingly.

Could it be a coincidence that the Rules come out as we plug Ron Paul for President?!?! (or maybe it was a Harry Potter thing)

Hmmmm...check your vote November 2008!

SB Design Academy Session #3

Date: July 19, 2007.

Instructor: Matt Turner

Students: Faiyaz Mohammed, Alex Wong

We looked at what Faiyaz and Alex came up with for 2006 design profiles. Matt broke them down piece by piece with specific emphasis on the need to adhere to the usability, dimensions, and other parts of the Rule book that are easy to overlook. After the breakdown, we went back to Salt Lake City and looked at NDSU, SUNY Canton and Wisconsin's bridges of 2006 and broke down their performance. It was obviously an efficiency year, and while some teams overloaded their bridge with material to get a minimal stiffness, NDSU kept the bridge as heavy as it needed to be and still came out ahead in the Efficiency category.

Structural Deisgn notes for 2006:
a. positive use of truss geometry
b. constructability over asymmetric river
c. initial truss angle, steep vs. flatter
d. design for load location...global or local stiffness approach
e. absolute need for precision in connections

The goal for next Thursday, July 26, will be to take a stab at the 2005 design scenario. Hopefully, after the first try things will get more detailed.

2 weeks 'til Rules.

SB Design Academy Session #2

Date: July 12, 2007

Instructor: Matt Turner

Students: Jessica Revell, Alex Wong, Chris Quon, Faiyaz Mohammed (incoming transfer).

Since we had a newcomer in the group, we basically talked about the SB Competition on the whole. The basics of a design profile, major rules that need to be followed, construction site, what competition is like, and how we get from sketch on napkin to final competition product.

We watched some video as well, saw Wisconsin's Northridge NSSBC run from 2007, and we saw Michigan's San Diego NSSBC run from 2003.

A design challenge was set as well. The goal was to come up with a basic design concept for the 2006 Rules -- with particular emphasis on bridge type selection according to scoring. As for constructability details, section size selection, and connection design, that's something we'll discuss this Thurday, July 19 at 6 pm in the Chrome Ollie Loft at Bainer Hall.

Until then, we march on, exciting times, Rules are a few weeks away!