Quote:
Originally Posted by davidrk13
so now that the bridge is completely done i realized some weird things, like that when its perfectly level the weight force it takes to push one side down is waaaay less then the other side so i just screwed some blocks of wood to the harder to push down side bottom to balance out the weight and it worked to fix that problem but its now completely not level when there's nothing on it so im scared that it wont be accurate when it comes to testing did anyone have a similar problem? or know if it will effect the testing?
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That's a combination of 1) plans modified on the fly and 2) the construction material used. I know that 148 reported a balancing bias when they constructed their bridge, about a couple lbf's worth. We haven't checked ours for such, but I wouldn't be surprised. Anyone who used the team drawings to construct their bridge will also have a bridge that's easier to tip than the one at competition (about 56 lbft of torque is necessary for the real bridge, as opposed to 30 lbft for the wooden one) because of the differencee in moment of inertia. Most teams have rectified this by adding steel plates or some other heavy, dense material to the underside of their bridges.