Project Summary and Introduction

Civil Engineering

Civil engineering is the planning, design, and construction of infrastructures such as transit systems or communication networks. Civil engineers deal with problems like pollution, traffic congestion, drinking water needs, or energy needs. As humanity develops, so does civil engineering. The field has many diverse branches including structural, environmental, and urban planning.

Building Science

Building science focuses on the analysis of buildings and the external factors that affect buildings. Similar to civil engineering, building science is also a very diverse field with diverse branches. Some of these branches work on the temperature within a building, air quality, and material usage. The purpose of building science is to optimize the building performance and sustainability of new and existing buildings, understand or prevent building failures, and guide the design of new techniques and technologies.

Our team was tasked with designing our own bridge in multiple different modeling programs according to certain specifications. First, we designed a bridge in Bridge Designer to help give us an idea of how forces were applied across a bridge. Then we modeled a 3D truss bridge in ModelSmart3D, which we transferred to TinkerCAD to be 3D printed by our instructor. Additionally, we had to write a research paper on the design process of structures such as buildings and bridges.