Troitsky update [sorry it's so late]

Quick post about the Troitsky Bridge Building Competition. Tim, Griff, Omar, and I went to Montreal to compete in this popsicle stick bridge building competition. Having gone last year, I was super excited for this year because we knew what to expect and I had a plan (since September!).

Rules:

Only materials are popsicle sticks, white glue, dental floss and toothpicks

Pieces must be able to fit into a 500mmx400mmx350mm "box"

Clear span of bridge: 1000mmm to 1200mm

Freeboard of bridge: <= 150mm

Overall length: <=1350mm

Deck height: <=450mm

Mass: <6kg no deductions, 6 < m <10 kg minor deductions, >10 kg you're ridiculous

Back in September, Tim and I made some test popsicle stick pieces to see how to best glue the popsicle sticks together. We waited for the pieces to dry and tried machining them in the band saw and putting them in the lathe, which were all successful and allowed for a more elaborate design. We also took a density test so that we could estimate the weight of the bridge before we even built it.

I drew everything up on Inventor for 3D purposes, made drafting plans of the pieces, and using the density, I tailored it until it was just shy of 6 kg so that we wouldn't go over with the dental floss or accidental extra weight. And then nothing happened until mid February...

Since I was in Concrete Toboggan, I had to wait to work on Troitsky, so once February 12th hit, I was in popsicle mode. Actually, because the week after GNCTR was hectic trying to catch up and write more exams, it started on reading week. So of the 6 days of reading week (closed the family day weekend), I think I spent all but 1 or 2 on campus working to some effect. Tuesday morning I got down to work and started glueing the tension members (the horizontal bar of the 'A' frame). These were some of the highly critical pieces so needless to say I was a little nervous because I didn't know how best to start. Turns out, organizing the first layer is important and tricky since there's nothing to secure them. I was lucky that for the dimensions of the tension members, the width was half a popsicle stick, so all I had to do after I cut off the rounded ends was to pass a few sets through the band saw again to get half pieces. It was basically cross laminated for simplicity. I got help from John in the afternoon which sped up the cutting and gluing process. In order to tie the tension members together, I built a second piece (one popsicle stick long, a 40mmx40mm cross section) that went perpendicular to the member so that the floss had something to wrap around. The tension member was built to have a hole that size to insert it, so at the end…it looked like a set of crossbows. Another thing done during the reading week was the design of the logo and the background for our display. Unlike concrete toboggan, we did not require technical data or analysis, so I took a picture of a ship, "Queen Anne's Revenge", sketched in AutoCAD and colour filled in Photoshop. No copyright issues!

The basic idea of the design was to achieve a quick install time for the day of the competition. The compression members connected to each other (at the peak of the 'A') and to the top of the tension members with dowels. The tension members were also doweled together and to the base plate on the pier. The piers themselves were hollow. The deck was supported on a flattened portion of the compression members and thin deck supports on the ends that were secured with notches into the underside of the deck.

So after spending way too much time in the machine shop cutting, glueing and machining, we were off to Montreal on Thursday after the dynamics class. It was great evening in comparison to last year because we pulled an all nighter trying to build the bridge pieces in our hotel room. This time we were able to go out, but that consisted of hanging around at the hotel for a bit, going with a group of people back and forth on St. Catherines because the events were over or the bars were full. À la GNCTR, we ended up back at the hotel, socializing in the hallway. We got kicked out by security, and Tim and I retreated to our hotel room, we lost Omar to visiting his Montreal friends and Griff to somewhere else in the hotel. Tim shoved himself under a bunch of sheets while he laughed at the audio from me watching anime (Natsume) and talking to John on Facebook about stuff from my applied math biology course. Griff came in much later, proclaimed 'I am so hammered', left again, and then came back 1/2 hour later to say 'I am so wasted' and was back to stay. Crazy times :P

Friday morning we got ready for the competition, sans Griff until a little while later for recovery purposes. Building went really well, We had three boxes of dental floss going together as one strand and being wrapped around the tension member "nubs" in a figure-8. The only thing we had to modify was to increase the height of the piers by one popsicle stick because there was a slight sag in the tension members even after being doweled on its ends and wrapped up in floss. Here's what our bridge and display looked like!

Crushing ceremony came in the afternoon, and some of these bridges did fantastically. Now, of the 34 teams, apparently 27 of them did 'A' frames because it's the tried and true design, so the creativity wasn't always there. As for our team, we got to 288 kg when we got a member failure (the dowels were ripping out of the inner face of the compression members where they meet the tension members). Since the crushing ceremony demands destruction, Tim smashed it on the ground since the "crusher" shaft was getting bent and they no longer were crushing until total failure. The machine still broke on the last bridge, the automatic number one team, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Even though the highest load from another team was 2500kg, they were at 2100kg and no sign of giving up when the "crusher" actuator gave up.

That night was the dinner and awards at La Cage aux Sports at the Bell Centre. The event got the entire bottom floor, so many engineering chants, beer, and popcorn everywhere. Thanks to GNCTR, I knew the cheers and could follow along :P. But after a while I had had enough, so like last year I slipped out after the dinner and headed the other way. A bunch of the Carleton alumni spotted me and asked where I was off to. I said '...out' to which Tim replied "she's going swing dancing" with a very matter-of-fact tone. Apparently that caught the attention of one of the Carleton alumni cause he used to be part of swing Dynamite and does west coast now, so he came with me to Cat's Corner. I had a blast, I just needed a bit of a different vibe than the drinking yelling group and just get to dance a bit.

When I got back to the hotel around 1 ish, I was in the hotel room for a bit but it quickly became busy so I headed upstairs to where Tim and the Carleton alumni were. Locked out of my hotel room, I was forced to be up until 3:30, and after having danced, I just wanted to sleep. First I checked the door, and the bolt was over the door, I go back upstairs in a determined tone saying "Tim, pass me our tension member, I'm getting into that room", but he came with me and so did one of the alumni because he was amused. Turns out people left our room in that time and I was able to curl up and go to sleep finally.

Overall I really liked this year's competition, much less stressful than last year, so more fun! I don't think I'd want to participate again (even if I could), but I'd be totally up for mentoring a group of undergrads if they are interested. They don't need to build a terrible bridge like we did last year. I leave you with our 2010 attempt, oh the colourful horror.

And the term comes to a close

It's been a very sporadic term between steady work and insanely busy with Troitsky, GNCTR, dancing, and seeing people.

Both the MTO bridge and the subway soil-structure interaction models have been going well. Though it seemed like my OpenSees model for the MTO bridge was completed, it seems like I needed to make the columns (a point of interest) a nonlinear fiber section where I specified the geometry and rebar layout. Though the return periods for the first six eigenvalues seem reasonable around 3 seconds, the current model does not converge. It seems the nonlinear elements are quite difficult to work with in terms of the dynamic analysis, connection to linear elements, and end connections. It's an interesting problem, though it seems like it would be much easier than it is since it's just a silly FE model. Oh well, I'm getting some guidance to help it be fully functional because it's needed for a thesis paper.

As for concrete toboggan, last week on Wednesday, I picked up the cement and fly ash from Woodstock and St. Marys with terry in the civil truck. Kristen's dad was so nice as to pick up aggregate, admixtures, sand, and slag. The next day I started the first mix with Richard, but due to misreading the components, I put normal cement rather than the high early cement that I picked up the day before. So the next morning, I did both the mixes (one from Misha and one from Kristen). The first got really soupy and separated (and really messy to cast into cylinders). The second was so weird; it was really sticky with so little sand and a bunch of cementitious material, and it actually formed a skin. having done the 7-day tests were generally uninteresting but the second mix on the second day looks very promising. Still have to do the 14 day test on my own since no one else from the design team is in town and available 9-5 for the test. A bit stressful but manageable.

Troitsky has had awesome progress. I drafted up a model on Inventor so that each piece is separate which will make the manufacturing process really easy once we get back together in January. Since we found out that the blocks of popsicle sticks are  machineable, we just need to find the right machines to get the intricate shapes. What is also helpful is that we took the density of the popsicle blocks so that the weight of the bridge could be estimated. We have something under 6 kg which means we're in the clear. Griff has done some calculations on the deck, so it seems like we're good there too. We got funding from the Sir Sandford Flemming foundation for travelling student teams, which means that our entire trip and materials is paid for (and feels awesome).

Christmastime is coming, I'm excited though I don't have any real plans yet. Had there been more snow I would have really liked to go snowboarding, there's still the rest of the winter. The Christmas shopping has been minimal, mainly since I don't agree to buying for the sake of getting something, but keeping it for a more useful time. Personally, there's not much that I want either, perhaps a pair of shoes that aren't as perforated as a pair of sandals, but I can't decide on which ones. I just want time with my friends and family, especially before I get too busy this upcoming term to appreciate them. :)

All of life's little updates

A combination of being under the weather and being busy has prevented me from posting for a while, but here's a short recap of the past month.

 From the 14th to 21st, Anna stayed at my house on a visit during her fall break. She got in to town in time for the Chester Whitmore workshop, we did some vintage clothes shopping in Toronto, shoe shopping (which I bought a pair of sexy vintage Fluevogs). Sunday was swing club and curling where Anna pointed out that curling is the most Canadian sport ever, ha. Monday was the weekly dance with a jam for Anna (went on forever, poor Anna). The rest of the week we found stuff to do, including shopping for baking supplies at Ayres, winter boot shopping, and similar touristy things. I had a bunch of fun, and it felt like I had a sister for week. Definitely missed her around the next week.

Chester Whitmore workshop in Toronto - Having worked with the Nicholas brothers, Chester is known for his tap and jazz experience. He was a really fun instructor, you could definitely pick up on the older black-style of swing in his dancing, plus he was always joking and smiling. His beginner and intermediate lindy workshops were good, and the solo jazz one was awesome. I definitely listed the moves on a txt file in the car with Anna later.

After much banging the head on the desk (literally), I've made great progress in my OpenSees model of the Essex county bridge. I have been focusing on this one since there has been interest from the MTO to obtain results. It'll be really exciting to visit the bridge this month and install the sensor (accelerometers) that was built in Sriram's lab to get and analyze real vibration data. Essentially, the framework is there, I just have to debug it, the annoying part. I really want it to work. While I was sick 2 weeks ago, I stayed at home as to prevent my officemates from getting sick. I got the most work done in weeks, hah. Looking forward to having it correctly spit out the correct mode shapes in Matlab. Also, I found out halfway through debugging my own Matlab code that the node, element, and mass generation is eons easier in Matlab than in OpenSees. So I just need to pass files between my mbp and HP (where I can run the Windows based remote desktop). I should be getting back to the Abaqus, though it's been crashing my programs of beams on a cube of soil, which is very annoying.

So two big student teams for next term are GNCTR (concrete toboggan), and Troitsy. Both have made progress by leaps and bounds in the past month. Despite issues about trying to organize a team via electronic communication now that it's established that there is a race, I just submitted initial registration for 8 people, where the minimum for racing qualifications is 6. IRS is on the same day as the race, so none of the 4th years want to go to concrete toboggan. It's great that we're getting support from the 2014 graduates because then they'll have experience and prepare their team. I'm happy that we have a theme, a name, and Liz from chem eng has been very good at designing costumes, swag, and ideas for the tech exhibit. Sponsorship stuff is hard work to contact lots of people and politely ask them for money.

As for Troitsky, Tim and I had a build session where I made a parallel strand block and he did an orthogonal pattern popsicle stick block. My block was clamped dry, Tim's air dried. Both were machineable two weeks later by Tim, Griff and myself. The parallel strand block also did very well in the lathe to make a dowel, which should become an integration part of our construction. I am really looking forward to this event because I enjoyed it last term. As a benefit, we're going to be well prepared and contenders for placing.

On Friday, I went with John to the Boathouse by Victoria Lake to listened Douglas Watson, a well-known Canadian blues musician from Kitchener. Liz, Jay, Vanessa and Brooke joined in from Toronto and Nigel from swing club came around. Though the floor was kinda tiny to dance and often filled with other dancers, it was really fun to see them play. I hadn't seen that band for 2 years and I was quite new to dancing at the time.

Last night was Swing Out to Victory at the Hamilton Heritage Warplane Museum. Dean ran it for the past 10 years, but this year Mandi took up the reigns so that Dean could relax and enjoy the event. Featuring the Toronto All Star Big Band, it was a bunch of fun to dance with so many Toronto, Hamilton, and Waterloo dancers all in one night. Everyone looked spectacular, Erika being very well dressed, Dean in his New Orleans hat (and he noticed my New Orleans shoes), and many people in vintage Canadian uniform as part of the living history enactment group. I wasn't sure if I was going to go after my meh experience last year, but this year was way better for me. More than just a few reasons, since I've now lived in Toronto and know these dancers a lot better, the event felt so natural and comfortable. The performances went all together well, and the flow of the evening was much like when Dean did it, minus a big theatrical thing where Dean's in a cardboard tank that he built.

Upcoming swing events include the Naomi Uyama and Gordon Webster night in a week and the Waterloo Holiday Christmas dance.

Gordon Webster, Toronto based now New York based pianist will be acoompanying Naomi Uyama, who will be giving a 1 hour workshop before the dance. This is unfortunately the shortest workshop that I've seen, also because I know she's good from the time I was in Vancouver. It will be a really fun night though it's a shame that it's on a Monday and Toronto people can't make it out for a work day. Also, I really want there to be more workshops in Waterloo, so I hope this one is well attended.

The Holiday dance is a joint project between the Hep Cat Hoppers and the UW Swing Club and it'll be featuring Jordan Klapman and the All Stars. Typically the UW Swing Club will host the dance, but David was able to help raise funds to pay for a bigger and better band than in past times. I just had a meeting with the exec today, and stuff like volunteer lists, decorations and DJs are quickly being settled. It's great having co-operative and energetic people in your club executive :D.

As for this week, it's relatively quiet. Monday is the weekly dance with Sandy McDonald, so New Orleans-y type guitar stuff so it should be fun and fast. On Wednesday, I'm contemplating going to the Hamilton dance since there's a few people there that I'd like to see more of since I didn't get to talk to them as much at SOTV. On Thursday, I have a ballroom social with Giulio, Arianne and Dan on Thursday. Saturday is the Christmas dinner with Sriram and the team, same day as a blues worksbop in Toronto that'd be well regarded, but I'd need to make it back by 6 pm. I don't think I have anything Tuesday or Friday, unless I'm forgetting something, which is entirely possible. I've been enjoying the crazy amount of dancing, but it does tucker you out faster.

Alright, that's it for me, time to sleep!

The end is nigh!

This morning marks my second-to-last set of finals for my undergrad. Steel design, concrete design, law, timber design, all in a week. Then it's done, well, onto more studying for the GRE and figuring out what the heck I'm doing with myself after April 2012.

It's a great feeling, provided I'm ready. I remember starting university and some of my friends telling me of their last year and how mentalities change, which I see it as partially true. I feel it's because the nature of the courses narrow in scope and become more practical. There were some people that I didn't see other than in law (if that) because we actually do have options for specialization. On the other hand, there are some people you see for 10 hours a day (luckily they're nice people).

This weekend I got my event and plane tickets to New Orleans for the Ultimately Lindy Hop Showdown which is September 29th to October 3rd. So far it's just Dean and I but we hope to accrue more people. 3+ days of entirely dancing to New Orleans jazz with some of the funnest people around? Count me in!

In other news, two University of Waterloo engineering teams are starting up. The first is the Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race 2012 to be held in Calgary, Alberta. It's a weekend of meeting other university teams, games, themed teams, races, and general nonsense. For more info contact uw-gnctr-2012@googlegroups.com.

The second is the Troitsky Bridge Building Competition, held at Concordia University in Montreal. Check out our Facebook Group!