Toothpick Bridge Challenge

In class, for about a week, groups were created and tasked with the challenge of creating a bridge out of toothpicks. The point of the bridge was trying to make a bridge with the best weight to strength ratio; weight of the bridge to the weight of the batteries it can hold. My group was made up of Daniel D. , Dylan B., John R., and I. My group had a 72/1 ratio, strength to weight.

Here were the Criteria and Constraints:

Criteria (Goal!)
Build the bridge with the highest strength to weight ratio (most weight prior to breaking vs the weight of the design).

Constraints(Toothpick version)
-Bridge may not weigh more than 50 grams.
-Bridge must span a 12” gap.
-Bridge must be at least one toothpick length wide.
-Bridge must be at least one toothpick length in height.
-No more than 8 toothpicks touching in parallel at any point.
-Materials:
Construction Materials:
-One pack of 800 Count “Royal” toothpicks.
-Glue guns and glue
-Fabrication materials:
-cardboard and wax paper to prevent glue mess.
-graphpaper to layout design.
-Keep your workspace clean!
-Clean any messes you make!

My team came in third place with the 72/1 ratio; the first place had around a 400/1 ratio(insane) and then the second place team had around a 120/1 ratio.


 Here is a picture of the batteries and our bridge after we first tested it!

Here is a picture of our bridge while it was still in the process of being made! Our rival team leader was in this picture.

Shopping Cart Design

This is the design that our group made for the Shopping Cart Design Challenge. It was created using www.buildwithchrome.com, an app made by Google and Lego. It was very easy and fun to use, and it made a simple 3D model for our design.

Our goal for this cart was to make a "Shopping cart for the 21st century," that is both easy to use and functional. We included 4 battery powered wheels for ease of access and buttons on the handle to control the turns. The pack in front is a cheap, compact battery to power the motors, which would be able to be plugged into a wall to recharge. We also included a screen on the front for directions around the store. You would be able to search for a food, or look up recipes and nutritional values on the cart. There would be a map aisles, showing where food is and how much it costs. This screen uses an antenna on the front communicate its location for navigation and in case they get stolen. 

Pros and Cons

+ Very easy to use because of powered wheels and navigation

- Probably very expensive

+ Easily adaptable for any disabled customers

- Target of theft because of expensive equipment

+ Recipes and Nutritional Values help keep user health conscientious

- Not as environmentally friendly as a normal cart

Lego Mindstorm Tug a War

This week in engineering we had a challenge to make a car out of Lego Mindstorm pieces to compete against other teams. My group was Daniel, Dylan (Baker), Dylan (Lektorich), and I. Our car ended up being able to beat Marshall's car, but could not defeat either Tommy's, or Allistair's, putting us around 3rd or 4th place in the classroom. Here are some pictures:

(Unfortunately our first iteration was taken apart so this is a replica)

+We had a driveshaft that spooled the string that helped to accelerate the game

-The spool sometimes worked against us

+The 3 wheels looked cool

-It was not heavy enough to really pull hard enough to beat many cars

+The big wheels had some good traction

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Ping Pong Ball Bridge

Today in engineering we had a design build challenge to build a way to get a ping pong ball across a two foot gap using a system of currency, with only 12 thousand dollars and 18 minutes. I was in a group with Marshall Alldredge and Caleb Woodson. Our idea was to build a bridge using two "stringers" of straws stuck into each other, propped up on one side by a cup. It worked really well on the first try, and was so cheap that we ended up decorating it with our leftover money.

Here are some pictures:

Superbowl Commercial

Superbowl Commercial

This Superbowl, even though the Broncos were being beat into the ground by the Seahawks, a ton of really funny commercials were aired. My favorite one of all of them would definitely be the Radioshack's 80's commercial, where they get a call from the 80's, and characters retake the store. 

To air a Superbowl commercial, it costs 4 million per thirty seconds, making this one cost around 8 million, not factoring in the cost of actors, equipment, song rights, and a studio.To break even on the cost of airing, they would have to sell around forty thousand phones at 200 dollars each, and probably around 45 thousand to pay for the complete costs.

This is the commercial that they aired.

Lego Mindstorm Cars

This week in engineering we made cars with the Lego Mindstorm kits. They were supposed to go around a U shaped track without any help from us. MY group was Mike Mulvey, Tommy Hardy and I, and we decided to make a tricycle based car. The biggest problem that we had was making it turn, but after Tommy worked on it for a day or two it finally started to work. In the end, it went around the track perfectly. While Tommy was working on programming it, Mulvey and I put a rubber band launcher on the top just in case we get attacked on the course.

This is our car without the brick

This is an action shot of Tommy working on it

This is our brainstorm of car designs.

Folder Bridge Building Challenge

Manilla Folder Bridge Challenge Part 1

Criteria and Constraints

• Use two manilla folders to make a bridge that can hold up some magazines
• You can only use a foot of tape
• There can not be more than 3 layers on top of each other at once
• There can  not be two parallel structures attached to each other
• Has to be at least 22 inches long, and between two tables

Our design was a big tube of folder taped together, with little folder triangles stuffed inside of it for support. It worked pretty well when we had enough tape to keep it up.

We never got a picture of the the bridge holding up the magazines on it own, but it held for about 3 seconds before collapsing

Manilla Bridge Building Challenge Part 2

We got a picture of the bridge standing on it's own, now with 3 feet of tape. It stood on its own for a really long time, until we took it off.