Articles

CE Club - March Update

Build-a-Beam with L.A. Fuess Partners

Steven Blair, Jared Boyles, and Phillip Pesek from L.A. Fuess Partners put on the Build-A-Beam Challenge for the Civil Engineering Club to test the students’ creativity and knowledge after 3 weeks of learning structures and statics in Mr. Carver’s classroom.  Each class was split into teams that were given six 2”x20” strips of foam core board to build a beam.  Half of the teams were given nails to build their beams while the other teams were given hot glue guns.  This was done to get a comparison between the two connection options.  Finally, the teams were instructed that the winners of the Build-A-Beam Challenge would not be determined purely on highest capacity but on highest efficiency by diving the ultimate capacity of each team’s beam by the beam weight.  This challenged the students to consider carefully the amount of materials used in their beam design.  The beams were loaded to failure by hanging a paint bucket at mid-span and adding one and two pound increments of sand into the bucket.  In the end, it wasn’t always the “strongest” beam that was the most efficient!  Steven, Jared, and Phil helped students during the design and construction phases of the project, offering advice on beam stiffening and section design.  They also examined each beam upon failure and explained the various failure modes to the students.  Additional pictures and a video from the Build-A-Beam challenge can be found here and here.