Wildcat Promo

Steel Willie is in with a Steel Bridge Promotional Video for 2008. Get it here:

Stay focused Steel Roos, K-State would love to "steel" the Mid-Con from us.

Best Steel Bridge Video Ever!

Or maybe I'm biased, judge for yourselves:

The Rules!!!

The rules are now out.

2009 Rules

...and it looks like the barges are back with a twist and the beam is the only bridge type. Or is it???

Travel Day

Drivers are already a day in and now only a few hours out. The rest of us are outie this evening via a Southwest Boeing 737. We'll still have a short drive from Orlando but hopefully we will be reunited with our road weary captains late this evening. Hope everyone travels safe, especially all those with a cross-country drive (don't trust those bridges to an airline or shipping company).

We are Smokin'

The sequence changes have been paying off and we have been ripping off some huge times, faster than I ever thought we could be (maybe the church basement is giving us some good karma).

The last two weeks of effort have been great, its down to crunch time now and it's all about making consistent, mistake free runs, just two weeks until we roll for real.

We definitely roll on Saturdays! Except for this one, Congrats to the Grads.

Renovations

It's Extreme Construction Sequence Makeover on the 5th Floor of the Parking Garage, we're rethinking everything. About half of the new ideas have been useful thus far but the net change has certainly been positive.

We've got some bridge changes to make to facilitate more rapid construction, hopefully we can continue to shave large chunks of time and fewer large chunks of skin from the captain's hand. We've got to get it running like a well oiled machine.

If anyone needs a reminder of what that looks like:

Actually, just see a Badger run from any year it's always quick and smooth.

Mid-Con Run Down

The Top Three (and Bound for GatorTown):

1. UMKC

2. Kansas State

3. Missouri S & T

(Get more info here.)


It was a two team race for the top spot and then a few others battling for the final nationals birth. Kansas State was good, as usual, fast and stiff, and of course impeccable sportsmanship, as always.

K-State nicked us for lightness otherwise we swept the awards, darned weight penalty (didn't we check that dimension 10 or 12 times). Some extremely questionable loading practices left all of the deflection numbers a little bit in question. Positive deflections on center loads!? Apparently the gravity in Arkansas does not conform to the laws of physics? That said, it would appear that the poor set-up affected the torsionally stiff girders like ours and the Cats' the least.

All in all we had a good competition, some quality lessons learned and plenty left to work on before Nationals. Good luck to all the schools who have qualified and are still left to compete in their regions, can't wait to see you all in the O'Connell Center.

Best Steel Bridge Post Ever!

No, not this one.

This one => http://chromeollie07.blogspot.com/2006/07/what-its-all-about.html

If you don't get it, I'm sorry. If you do, good luck to you.

We're off!

Well almost, one more practice and a final check, double check, triple check of all the neccessities and we'll be on the road to Fayetteville.

The bridge has been transformed from its beautiful shade of brown to a slightly more pleasing shine. Hopefully our protective measures will keep it that way, at least for a few days.


Be methodical and clean build team, and don't forget to "BRING IT!".

Seems so slow now.

No Foolin Around

April is here and so is the meat of the Steel Bridge Season. Our load test is done and things looked nice and solid, no funny business.


We've been tidying up all of the loose ends and making tweeks to improve constrution times. Still a short list of fabrication items to get in compliance with all the silly rules. The construction times are finally coming down and just in time with Regionals just two weeks away.

On the Home Front

After weeks of laydown work, we're finally working up right. All that's left now is cross-member and bolt work. The clearances are tight, really tight, but a few more days and we'll be ready to start feeling out construction.

Steel Bridge Fun in Iowa

A short drive up to Iowa City on Friday to take a look at some of the traditional powers in Steel Bridge Nation (most notably North Dakota State) and also experience one of the best college towns around. No word yet on the results but Iowa State and North Dakota State appeared to be battling for top honors. The Cyclones were showing off some nice fabrication and a very slick multi-colored-metallic-flake paint job (rivaling that of Hawaii in 2006). Light and stiff appeared to be the theme of the day.

If you ever go, it is a must to stay downtown.

Keep on Keepin On

One week's hard work cutting, milling, and welding down, and all of the flat work on the deck is done. This week the girders go 3D and maybe we'll start in on the absurdity that is our piers. It's looking like we'll be in really good shape when the connections arrive.

Pictures!!!

The steel has arrived! Roughly 900 feet of cold steel tubing warms my heart.

Craig explains to Patrick that there are 3 ways to do things: the right way, the wrong way, and the SteelRoo way (usually involves burning something).

Why not use 2 people to do one job?


Hard at work, you'll notice that there is light and no one's breath is showing. Yay new shop!

Connection testing. Notice the high tech dial gauge. Go Roos!

Fabrication Station

The last week has been very busy, but very productive as well. We got fabrication started off on Saturday, and made some excellent progress. The new shop is working out great, and all of the new tools really improve our precision and our production. We got most of the steel cut for the girders and are in the process of welding together the girder sections. We've had a few learning experiences already, including chewing the teeth off of a band saw blade and builiding a jig that wouldn't release the piece after it was fabricated. But all in all, I couldn't be more pleased with our progress so far (unless we had the connections). We also had a successful test of our connection design on Friday. Now if we could just start practicing our run through...

Get Crackin'

After a bit of a December lull (waiting on connections, material, and general slacking) we're all ready to start burning some steel. The new shop is completely set to go, lots of new tools and creature comforts (no more sub-freezing fabrication sessions), not to mention some much needed safety equipment. The material is all in, the connections are in process, the complex deck jig is built and tested, pretty much everything is set to go non-stop 24 hours a day until we're finished, kidding but only a little.

We'll be working hard, just 11 weeks until Regionals and as always we want at least a month of practice (so glad we're not a Texas school). Still on the lookout for an indoor practice facility so we can avoid any cold March mornings, the way this year is going they'd probably be in the snow.