[archiver]

Posted by Andy Baker at 03/19/2001 11:56 PM EST


Engineer on team #45, TechnoKats, from Kokomo High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.


In Reply to: Broken Bridge
Posted by Bill Beatty on 03/19/2001 11:38 PM EST:



Bill,

Wow! I didn't realize that an angle was broken off. FIRST must've put it back on fairly well... it stayed on at SoCal... until we took it off again.

The guys out at the SoCal Regional (myself, some really cool guys from the Vintage-232 team, Glen from team 60, and Brian Farmer from FIRST) made a bit of an improvement to the bridge.

We noticed that it was a bit warped after Friday's comp. With the bridge in the up position, it was 24 5/8" on one edge of the up side and 25 1/4" on the other edge. The down side had one corner that touched the ground and the other was about 3/4" off of the ground.

First we loosened the bolts, slightly jumped up and down on it, trying to warp it the other way, and then tightened the bolts... but no change.

Next, we took it off and turned it over. Looking down the length of the angle iron on the bridge, we noticed that one of the 2"x12"s was sticking up 3/32" higher than the other 2"x12"s. We took off the angle, and then sanded down the offending 2x12 to be even with the other boards.

This seemed to help some, but it was still a bit wobbly. It worked better on Saturday, and the competitors seemed happy, so the simple fix did the trick for the time being.

We wanted to do more, but Brian decided that we better not. He mentioned that FIRST will discuss making the bridges more sturdy... but they gotta figure out how to do this without messing up anyone's bridge manipulation strategy.

One suggestion that we came up with as a group was to attach thin plywood, polycarbonate, or sheet metal across the bottom of the 2x12s, immediately outside of the 2 angles, on either side. These two sheets would be about 12"x48". I don't think that this would affect anyone's strategy out there... but who knows if FIRST will add this.

We shall see.

Andy B.