Building With Balsa- Prompt 8

                             

By: Nash Roberts

     Over the last weekend I enjoyed a rare bonding activity with my dad and brothers. The activity consisted of the building and testing of  bridge constructed with only balsa wood and glue. This experience helped me develop some key skills used in the field of engineering. These skills are communication, teamwork and creativity.
      While building this bridge there were a lot of ideas tossed around but only one bridge could be made. This is why communication is such a vital part of engineering, to create the best structure possible there has to be many perspectives willing to share their ideas while being able to clearly and concisely describe their thought process and end goal. This requires confidence in one's own abilities and the grace to handle rejection which happened a lot during our building process. In the end multiple suggestions were incorporated in the final product.

       To reach the final product teamwork was also required. This had to be one of the more challenging group projects I have participated in and if I can build a bridge with my younger and older brother I should be able to accomplish anything as we are not the most cohesive group of siblings. Somehow we were able to briefly set our differences aside and use teamwork to make the dream work. As an engineer one has to respect others ideas as you would want them to respect yours so very early in the brainstorming process I put this into action hoping it would be reciprocal and it was. My ability to be a mediator and accomplish something with my brothers gives me hope that I will be able to get along with almost anyone in a group with a common goal in mind.
       This goal was also accomplished with collective creativity. We have all seen a bridge before and after some thought we came to the conclusion that the triangle would be strongest and therefore best shape to use on the bridge but the tessellation of these triangles is where the creativity came into play. More specifically we determined that the equal lateral triangle would be best suited to handle the pressure. Next measurements were made to use all of the supplied wood while having as many equal lateral triangles as possible.
      Some things can not be learned from simply picking up a book. These skills are a perfect example of that. While this experience did not necessarily teach teach me anything new it helped me develop existing skills that I will use everyday on my field where they will develop even further.