User:Dzhang2680/enes100/bridges

Link to project DAS team page.

Give instructor top 3 project choice list
I chose three top topics from the Engeering Project page. The instructor put me to Bridges Project as my fist option.

Write problem statement
The goal of the project is to build a spaghetti bridge which can be loaded as much weight as possible. What is the basic design for a bridge to load the most weight? How to connect spaghettis?

Assign Task1
I have two teammates. Angele and Syed will do research for the design of bridges and I am responsible for the software of designing bridges. Besides that, we will all do tests on connecting the spaghettis.

Compare actual work done to Task1
We did tests and found out a way to connect the spaghettis. However, we didn't get a chance to practise it. So we just have a basic thought about it but still can't work on actually building the bridge.

Week1 Narrative
I was looking all over the place, trying to find out what software I can use for designing bridges. Since I didn't have any software background and I never had experience of building bridges, it was hard for me to figure out which software was useful. I looked up online, it seems like there are a lot of similar softwares, some of them are free and some are not. It is not really helpful. Then I start looking through the previous reports of bridges project in HCC. I found out one team, they used Dreamweaver software. I talked to my teammates. They had no idea how to use it. Eventually, we decided to use some other software we were familiar with if needed. Then, I tried to find out a way to connect the Manicottis which will be the arch part of the bridge. Manicottis are so hard that they are really hard to shape. So I was thinking of soften them by boiling them. Since we don't have stoves in Engineering room, we decided to use microwave to heat up water. However, the temparature of the water which was heat by microwave was not hot enough. The Manicottis took a really long time to soften and it seeems to be unsafe if I keep on heating it up with microwave. After I went back home that day, I was wondering around in my house, trying to find a better way to heat up water. Then I found it, rice cooker. I did a test to boil water with rice cooker. It was way faster, safer and more effective. It shortened the time we soften the Manicottis. Also, I wanted to see which way to soften the Manicottis was better, boil the whole piece? or just one end of it. I found out that soften the whole piece was better than only soften one end, because it was easier to get broken by softing partly. Since we were thinking of shaping the Manicottis which can be easy to glue. I want to see if they will get harden again once they get boiled. So after the Manicottis got soften, I put them in room temparature for 4 or 5 hours, they were still soft. Then I put them into fridge. They didn't get harden too much the next day and they became very brittle but not as strong as before. Therefore, I think the softern Manicottis can be used to connect the hard ones by being hidden inside of the tubes of the hard ones. I don't know if it is practical. Still need to test when we actually build the bridge.

Week1 Peer Review
Go to each team mates weekly summary wiki page. Read their activities and narrative. Then go the associated discussion page. Say something positive on this page. Try some constructive criticism. Add your name and 1sfoerster 13:32, 28 August 2011 (UTC) to create a time and date stamp. Create a new category if another team mate has already commented here.

Assign Task2
Actually build the bridge. And wait for more problems expose.

Compare actual work done to Task2
We started working on building the bridge this week. Some problems came up while we were building the bridge. We decided to start over again in order to solve the problems and build a high quality bridge.

Week2 Narrative
This week we were focusing on actually building the bridge. We decided to build a smaller scale bridge first by using skinny straight spaghettis as the arch part. I picked ten spaghettis as one group and cut them the same length. Then I used tape to keep the spaghettis stay and glue both ends of each group of spaghettis. It was hard to cut the spaghettis into the same size since we didn't have exact measurement for the bridge. I just picked one spaghetti as sample and compared it to other spaghettis to make them about the same size.Sometimes I wanted to do it faster, so I cut several spaghettis at the same time which would break the spaghettis. It was not a good way to size the spaghettis like this. We have to have exact measurement. And maybe draw the bridge on a big piece of paper first which is the same size of the bridge we are going to build. Then we can have a better scale to build it. The other problem was when I glue the spaghettis, the epoxy took a long time to dry up and since pieces of spaghettis were not tied to one another, when the glue dried, the spaghettis didn't really glue together. It was just individual spaghetti with glue on it. The bridge would not be strong if we glued it this way. Therefore, we decided to use Ditalini pasta. It is a kind of pasta with short tubes like elbows, but shorter and without a bend. It will be much easier to connect the pasta by using Ditalini type. We did presentation in the class. About the glue part, I thought glue gun might be better then epoxy because it dried faster. However, Professor Foerster suggested us not to use glue gun because it is not strong enough and he said he saw a lot of people tried and failed at the end and epoxy is the best one. It is good to know similar experiences people had in the past, but I still wanted to try out and test on glue gun. Maybe I will do the glue gun to connect and fix the pasta first, and then code epoxy on top to make it stronger. At the same time, like what I mentioned before, I will have an exact measurement and draw the same size bridge on a big piece of paper first, and then follow the paper to build the bridge. It will be more accuate and easier. Also, I went online trying to look for the best proportion of the height and length for an arch bridge. I found this website and it mentioned that the higher the bridge you want to build, the stronger the middle truss member part you want to make. Website referances :Height and length proportion. In the meanwhile, I was looking at bridge test software too. I couldn't find any free testing software.

Week2 Peer Review
Go to each team mates weekly summary wiki page. Read their activities and narrative. Then go the associated discussion page. Say something positive on this page. Try some constructive criticism. Add your name and 1sfoerster 13:32, 28 August 2011 (UTC) to create a time and date stamp. Create a new category if another team mate has already commented here.

Assign Task3
Sketch a same size bridge on a big piece of paper. Figure out exact measurement for every part of the bridge. Find right type of spaghetti or pasta we are going to use.

Compare actual work done to Task3
We focused on designing the bridge this week instead of drawing on a piece paper.

Week3 Narrative
This week I focused on designing the bridge instead of drawing on a piece of paper, because I have to figure out the best propotion of measure and the design first. Professor Forester suggested us a bridge design software which is from John Hopkins University. I can design bridges on the website and when I load on the bridge, it can calculate how much weight is loaded on each truss on the bridge. Then Syed found another bridge design software called West Point Bridge Design Software. I can an arch bridge and test it how much weight it can actually bear. I will keep explore this software, see if there is more I can find out. The only problem is both softwares are only two dimensionals, and we can't put much bridge detail on it. We decided to use half meter long spaghettis as the truss members in the middle. However, from the internet, the only place I found this length of spaghettis is in UK. I will keep looking, see if I have more found out.

Link to Bridge Designer from John Hopkins

Link to West Point Bridge Designer

Link to Meter long spaghetti

Week3 Peer Review
Go to each team mates weekly summary wiki page. Read their activities and narrative. Then go the associated discussion page. Say something positive on this page. Try some constructive criticism. Add your name and 1sfoerster 13:33, 28 August 2011 (UTC) to create a time and date stamp. Create a new category if another team mate has already commented here.

Assign Task4
Have an agreement on how to connect spaghettis and pasta and maybe do tests about using glue guns to connect them. Keep looking for the kind spaghettis we need.

Compare actual work done to Task4
I didn't get a chance to test gluing the spaghettis.

Week4 Narrative
This week, we tried to finish project 1 and prepare for project 2. All of the team members decided to stay on the same team to continue building the spaghetti bridge. Since we will focuse on actually building the bridge in project 2, the materials have to be prepared ahead. I found the meter long spaghetti online. The only website I found which sells more than half meter long spaghetti was one site called Guidetti from UK. They don't have price on the website and I couldn't shop online. So I emailed them to ask the price and let them know we wanted to order. However, I haven't heard from them yet. For the tube pasta of the arch, Angele has some and we will purchase more for future. Since we have the same team for the next project and we are clear about what we are going to do, we didn't spend much time to build up the team.

Week4 Peer Review
Go to each team mates weekly summary wiki page. Read their activities and narrative. Then go the associated discussion page. Say something positive on this page. Try some constructive criticism. Add your name and 1sfoerster 13:33, 28 August 2011 (UTC) to create a time and date stamp. Create a new category if another team mate has already commented here.

Complete Project Page
Follow the "project done" format.

Start Next Project Week0 activities
I will stay on the spaghetti bridge project.