Truss Building Competition

So I have been in TAM 195 this semester, which is an intro into Engineering Mechanics, and our final and major project was to design, build, and test a wooden truss. The truss had to be designed to certain dimensional specifications and would be tested by the the application of a central load using the 3,000,000-lb Southwark-Emery testing machine located in Talbot Lab on campus. Because the goal of the project was to support the greatest load per weight of the structure, we decided to design a simple strong that would transfer the majority of the load to tension in the horizontal beams. After designing the structure and building during a class period one day, we finally tested the structures in the class competition on Tuesday. And, although our structure was not the lightest and did not carry the greatest maximum load, it did have the highest ratio of the two, which was the goal of the competition. Our structure was 36 pounds and carried a maximum load of 15,000 pounds, making a maximum load to weight ratio of 416.7, which, if I do say so myself, is quite remarkable. Our professor, James Phillips said in class that he once designed a truss with a ratio of over 400! Needless to say we won the competition and had a great time competing and implementing our knowledge of forces and structures to design and build this champion truss.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Trip!

So this Friday my iTeam, AED, went on a field trip to visit SOM, a world-renowned architecture firm, in downtown Chicago! We woke up before 6 in the morning in order to make a 7 am bus ride to the city. Once we arrived downtown, we took the subway and walked to Michigan Avenue where SOM is located. There we were welcomed by Keith Besserud, our iCOA at SOM. After introductions, he gave us a tour of the office and described some of the projects that the firm is currently working on, many pictures and models of which were displayed at the office.

We then took seats in a conference room where Keith introduced us to two of his colleagues, a structural engineer and an sustainability designer who both gave very interesting presentations addressing the correlation of their respective fields to architecture. The structural engineer talked about the relationship of math to design and how a greater understanding of the way forces flow, known by mathematical formulas, can lead to more efficient structural design. The sustainability designer talked about the optimization of different building schemes in order to minimize carbon emissions and overall power usage. Especially interesting in his presentation was the design process which he described that led to the innovative wind turbines in the Pearl Wind Tower, an SOM-designed structure world renowned for it's implementation of energy-saving techniques.

Then, over lunch, Keith gave a presentation about his group, the Blackbox Team, which is small team within SOM which focuses on designing through advanced computational methods. He gave us a brief crash course in the process, often involving genetic algorithms, and showed us some remarkable results from his work with these processes. After these presentations we thanked Keith for a wonderful experience and left the office to do some walking around Millennium Park and downtown. Several of our group members visited the Art Museum and then we jumped back on a train to Champaign, arriving back around 7 pm. All in all, a great day to establish a firm connection with our iCOA, Keith Besserud at SOM, and learn about some really cool architectural design processes along the way!