Term Review

Last week in class, our group tested our 3' bridge design. Before doing so, we'd submitted a survey about the bridge to our professor who put the info provided by the survey into an Excel sheet. Using the Excel sheet, the entire class was able to compare the cost and strength of each bridge, side-by-side. As a class, we decided to test the bridges in order of highest to lowest predicted cost-to-strength ratio. Which group went first? None other than ours. Even worse than the 17 pounds we'd predicted our bridge would hold, it only supported 14.7 pounds in the final test. To make things worse, this meant our cost-to-strength ratio was even  greater than we'd estimated.

Now that the final competition is over, I can look back at all the steps we'd taken throughout the course and honestly say that I learned something worthwhile about every single one of the topics identified in the goals for the course. Working with a group required teamwork. Planning, documenting, computer modeling and physical modeling were all part of the design process which our group followed throughout the course. We used some computer software I'd never used before, and we used some computer software that I've already been familiar with for years. Lastly, we used static and forensic analytical methods to learn more about the weaknesses of our bridge designs.

I think the only thing that was not beneficial to me was the fact that this Engineering 103 lab was disconnected from the Engineering 103 lecture section of the overall course. If the bridge lab could be formatted to follow the general pattern of the assignments for all the other labs, I think I would feel like the Engineering 103 lecture section of the course was more important to me, since it is something I am required to attend. Basically, I just felt that attending the lecture session wasn't very important because I was told to ignore what they told everyone about assignments being due and ways to earn extra credit. On the other hand, I feel that having individual blog posts benefitted me alot. I think this is something that every lab should have. Although teamwork is important--especially as engineers--we are not paid to do the work for our classes, which means some students simply do not care as much as other students. Some students know that other students will do the work for them so that their own grade is not negatively affected by the actions of a lazy student. I've experienced this in Engineering 101 and 102, and the students who did not do all of their work did not have anything held against them. In the real world, they could potential be fired from their job, but in class, they won't even receive an F because someone else will end up doing the group assignment this student was responsible for. Instead, individual assignments reflect the work of each student, even if the assignments show similar results because of two or three students being in a group together.

- Melissa Wetzel