Over the past week and a half I have been constructing a balsa wood bridge with a triangular design. I was able to construct the four main triangles which make up the bridge with little to no problems, but this week I have encountered my first real mistake. I added supports to the bottom of each triangle, thinking they would fit perfectly in between the blocks which our bridge must rest on. After adding the extra supports I realized that i set them millimeters too wide and they did not fit in between the blocks as I planned. In order to correct this problem without spending a lot of extra time taking them off, cutting them, and re-attaching them, I am going to extend off of the support. This extension I’m adding should allow my abutment supports to work properly and at the same time give a place for the bridge to rest on.
My bridge supports not fitting in between the blocks:
Solution:
One of my fellow peers, Scott McDougall, is taking on the task of constructing a balsa wood bridge in a completly different way from me. Insteaf of making a bridge which is made up of only stright pieces of wood, he is incorperating arches into his design. Although this is a tough task, he has been able to follow through with it with ease and nearly no mistakes. He has already created the arches for his design by soaking pieces of balsa wood in warm water and then tacking them down into their desired shape. This method has worked well, and he reports to me that the arches are exactly how he would have like them.
Scott's arches being formed:
-Dylan M.
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