2012 West Point Bridge Design Contest
It’s that time of year again, and the 11th annual West Point Bridge Design (WPBD Contest) Contest is starting. Registration is free and open to anyone, so I encourage you to try your hand in this fun contest. The software for the contest is simple to use, and actually is a great tool for learning how bridges work, and how forces are spread out in a given bridge design.
Here is the link to the main site:
http://bridgecontest.usma.edu/
Is it just me or is the slenderness check new for this year? I did not get much of a chance to play around with the 2011 version, so I am not sure if it is brand new or not. The slenderness check caught me by surprise and is somewhat annoying.
I’d love to hear your comments about the program and how you are doing in the contest.
Can anyone help me make a 161k or 160k bridge? I only have one goal and that’s to get number one in my school. Email me at regina_andes@yahoo.com
Please, help me :\
Nevermind, I need: 159k
hey im trying out the new program and needed some help i need to make a bridge 0 m with a pier and cant get it lower than 161970 think anyone can help me if you can email me at jarredthorn@yahoo.com it would be greatly appreicted
Your lucky you got that low at 0M with a pier… Move on up in the valley but keep the pier.
Well I was falling behind and worked on it a while… Got mine down to 143.5k, but had to change site configurations. Fairly simple design.
I can’t seem to go lower than 164k and it’s my first year
Currently in 2nd place :\
I’m not confident about using other trusses besides warren and I can’t seems to use other materials other than hollow tubes…
Can anyone get me out of this box ?
I’ve gotten my bridge down to about 150k, but i can’t seem to get any lower than that. I’m starting to fall behind in my local conetest. Any tips?
same here. I was in 1st but I’ve dropped to third in my school. try tweaking the positions of your pivots so they aren’t centered. sometimes that works, while other times it messes up the design completely. good luck and have fun with your design.
This is my first year using this software and I can only get down to 158.4 k. I don’t understand what types of designs to use I feel like I’ve tried everything and am getting no where. Any hints or tips?
158.4k is not bad for your first year, especially since the contest just began. Read the rest of the comments here which give lots of advice that will help you out.
Well Im down to about 146.1K now, though I think Im about 1K under the last bridge I have submitted. Im not too big on some of the strength changes on the types of beams this year, they have really improved carbon over last years program.
what did u use to get it that low? would u have any tips for breaking 150k? btw good job on 146k =)
Has anyone seen a noticeable difference in the center lane vs. two lanes for the trucks? Are the certain situations in which one of those options is preferred?
I’ve only gotten 156k with 2 lanes. I’m at 154k with centered.
$151k now.
What did you change? Or whole new design?
Just minor tweaks. Mostly adjusting some members so they are the same length.
Im currently 1st in my local contest and 84th nationally. my bridge is 152.2k and it is killing me cause i just cant figure out how to lower the price to 150k
What have been the things that have helped you so far?
Looks like you’re in 37th if your username is the same. What are you down to now?
im at 151k my bridge is a double arch at 20m with a 20m peir medium strengh concrete and centered loading. do u know what i could do to drop it lower? and out of my local contest im 2nd. my rival Maxthedemacian is at 146 rite now. anyone know how i can beat him?
honestly all i need is a way to break 150k. my current bridge looks like the 2007 winner except there is a pier instead of that odd bar pattern.
Garrett, What height are you at? I’m down to mid 158′s but I think my site configuration might be limiting me (second lowest height, peir up to the bridge).
Edit: Down to low 154s
Did you raise the height?
Yeah, I raised it to 20m (highest with a centered pier), the pier height is also 20m, with medium strength concrete and centered loading.
My design is basically a Warren pony truss straight across, with about 2 hours worth of optimizing to get it down to the low 154′s. I’m guessing that to get any lower I will need to use a non-standard truss design that hasn’t been nerfed to oblivion thanks to the slenderness check.
I’m trying to win my local contest (schoolwide, I’m in second right now, trailing by a little less than 1k last time I asked the first place team), which would also put me in the bottom end of the top 40 (they are team Ice-Breakers, in 36th). My current best of $154,236.81 has me in 99th place nationally.
A lot of my optimization was from switching from all Q&T tubes to using bars in tension areas and tubes in compression areas (tip from the help menu) and dropping the materials down on many of the bars that were stronger than needed when they ran into slenderness issues.
Any other tips would be greatly appreciated.
Aha, we think alike. While it would be easy for me to tell you how to get to 152k (where I am at), that really wouldn’t help you learn anything. So here are some questions. Also keep in mind that obviously the way I am doing things has only gotten me to 11th place in the open. Lots of people are designing cheaper, and perhaps better, bridges.
Have you noticed sometimes when you lower a member’s size, the price goes UP? If you have noticed this, do you know why? WPDB 2012 uses a lot of factors to calculate the price of the bridge, and you have to understand all the things going on or it will be confusing.
Have you tried making an arched shape bridge?
I know with things like this contest I tend to get stuck thinking in traditional boxes, which only get me so far. I don’t know if there is an unconventional truss design that works with this year’s software (like Big Jake’s winner of my local contest).
Yup. Having a ton of members that are identical brings the price down. Helps even more if they are the same length.
Long time no talk Garrett! And to answer the question no the slenderness was introduced in the 2011 version… Awful idea in my opinion, ties the hands of the builders a little too much. Im glad to see you in the contest this year, I finally got about an hour to set down today and play with it some school just has me so busy here lately. What are you working with I am currently at 148.8K and that only has me at 8th in the open, so im not too sure where the bottom of this years program will be, but if i had to guess I would say 140K or so.
Ah, Jake. I was wondering if you would pop in for this contest. Good to see ya back.
The reason they give for the slenderness handicap is that real “slender” members are too hard to work with on the jobsite. I guess this would be true, although I am sure it could be worked around if the engineer really wanted to use slender members. Perhaps they should have just increased the cost of slender members rather than not allowed them at all.
I am at 152.6k. I haven’t had much time to try to improve and unfortunately I don’t know if I’ll get any more time. I’d love to be able to finish in the top 5 of the open competition. I never did that well in the earlier competitions even when I had more time to devote to it, so we’ll see.
Yeah I feel ya, time is my major problem these days there just not enough of it, it seems like. And I honestly may be partially responsible for the slenderness rule due to some of the “unique” bridges that I have done well with lol. Like the one that I submitted in your local contest that time that had the bow like middle pier, but I dont know it may not have anything to do with it.
i really dont understand how you guys are making these bridges costs so low. My friend, lowest inour school is at 158k, and Im stuck at 170k. If you could please post some ideas to help me with this project, that would be awesome. my 170k is a small arch at the lowest altitude, with tons of time working to get the cost lower and now i have hit a wall. Please help, thanks.
It takes time to get lower, just test a lot of bridges. You can’t get super low price very easily with the lowest height, cause your starting costs are double what they are for the highest height.
If you want to drop the price, think of this : the site cost is a huge factor in the total cost. the lower the altitude, the higher the site cost. the higher the altitude, the higher the bridge cost. try a design at a higher altitude to balance the cost out. try 4m instead of 0m. then try higher altitudes. my bridge is 150k and its at 20m. glhf (good luck and have fun)
Will there be a local contest this year?
Most likely yes. I am thinking about starting it a little later, maybe in March.
I’ve broken 160k, but I am having a hard time getting past that.
Does anyone have any helpful tips/hints for this? Thanks
For a starting place you can read through the turtorial here:
http://bridgecontest.usma.edu/tutorial.htm
The “Help” menu in the actual program gives some good tips about optimizing your designs.