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WEST POINT BRIDGE DESIGNER Published by: Directorate of Information Management U. S. Military Academy West Point, NY 10996 Phone: (845) 938-401 http://bridgecontest.usma.edu Price: Free program, website download
Occasionally we run across software programs that represent mathematics in real life situations, that can fit well in a class or as a student project, and that are also genuinely fun and engaging. The West Point Bridge Designer is one such program. It is a shareware program developed as a simulator for designing and building a truss bridge, and can be downloaded from bridgecontest.usma.edu, a web address at the United States Military Academy at West Point. System requirements are an IBM compatible computer with a Pentium processor or better (no Macintosh version is yet available, but one is expected soon), Windows 95 or newer, and 16 MB of RAM and 8 MB of hard disk space.
The objective of the program is to design and build a bridge for as little money as possible while maintaining the structural integrity appropriate for withstanding a load test without component failures. The program features all the tools necessary for the completion and testing of a bridge, including an animation of a truck driving over the bridge. One particularly neat feature is that the program illustrates the stresses and forces on the members of the bridge using an animation that exaggerates by a factor of 10, so that the users can see clearly where the greatest stresses are applied to their structure. The tension and compression forces are even color-coded during this testing phase. This is a potentially powerful educational feature since many times it is difficult for students to visualize the complex mathematical relationships of stress and force.
To meet the objectives of the program, the user must design, construct, and ultimately test a bridge that spans a 40-meter gap. The bridge designs can have any one of four different substructure configurations, each having a different cost and each supporting the bridge in a different way. A design profile is available through a well-documented and quite friendly "help" tool. In addition, a "design wizard" feature guides the novice through each step of the design process, and works much the same way as "wizard" features found in many word processing programs or other software packages. New users will benefit greatly from using the design template, which helps them place joints and members to ensure that the bridge is stable. Several different design templates are available and immediately accessible through point and click menus. Most users, even those unfamiliar with the physics of design, can be designing their own bridge within just a few minutes. The real power of the program is that it allows for frequent testing during quick design changes so that users can learn about the mathematical relationships as they play and experiment with different templates and formats.
Each of the design features of West Point Bridge Designer gives the user a great deal of flexibility in creating designs using virtually any shape or configuration desired. The process of creating the design is relatively fast and easy too, so users can experiment with many different alternative configurations as they work toward an efficient solution and stable structure. An engineer friend has told me that the design process used in the program is quite similar to the process used by practicing civil engineers as they design real structures. The West Point Bridge Designer program itself is fairly similar to the computer-aided design (CAD) software used by practicing engineers, and helps the user in the same way that CAD software helps the engineers, by representing complex mathematical calculations so that one can better focus on the creative aspects of the design process. The operation of the program is also quite efficient. The tool bar is fairly simple and features a number of movable menus. The tools include a calculator that automatically updates cost and a "member properties report" that provides some neat graphics on strength coefficients, material properties, and cross-sectional measurements.
All in all, this program is an excellent way to bring applied mathematics into the classroom without getting overwhelmed with extensive mathematical calculations. This is a very engaging program that I must admit is quite addictive. For instructors looking for a mathematically engaging and real-life project for their students, or even for a fun personal distraction, the West Point Bridge Designer is a great choice.
Review by Elliott Ostler
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Copyright Mathematics and Computer Education Spring 2003
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved
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