The Bridge Blog
A dialog about our new bridge and these web pages
Overview. As a pointy-headed
university professor, my weekend project of bridge photography and
building these web pages generated many questions and introduced me
to just-in-time learning. I enjoy chasing my curiosity and
want to identify ways to encourage younger learners to also enjoy curiosity
chasing and learning.
Learning usually requires repetition while forgetting occurs when
I infrequently use information. Many young learners do not understand
the importance of repetition. Weekly visits to the bridge provided
the repetition necessary to detect changes in the bridge and
consequently generated
many questions and opportunities for learning. Over the course of the
bridge project, I had access to few experts for answering questions.
Rather than a liability, this became an asset and pushed me to improve
my search skills with Google. Soon, I found that answers
to questions encountered during my weekly photo shoots were often
only a Google-search away -
(see
Restoring the Joy in Learning). Consequently Google + Internet became
dependable extensions of my memory.
The bridge story is a work in progress and is evolving from a simple
collections of photographs to an experiment with Internet-centric
just-in-time learning.
Insights I gain from you
will find their way into the learning centers of MUSC.
Palmetto Bridge Constructors, a joint venture between
Tidewater
Skanska and
Flatiron Constructors, as well as
High Steel Structures,
Freyssinet, the
SCDOT and the
Federal Highway Commission Office
of Bridge Technology guided much of my learning.
I also learn from many of you and from Google-linked resources. More
important is the e-mail encouragement I receive from many of you.
Sun, 01 May 2005
May 1, 2005: Adventures with elevators and the traveler
Yesterday I met Murray Feldman and indirectly Bill Nesteruk and his
company, Specialized Engineered Products Ltd. Bill creates these
modern marvels that transport stuff horizontally (as with the bridge
traveler) as well as vertically (or almost vertically) - i.e. the
bridge elevators. Murray makes them work in the field.
Again, design and engineering of the traveler
and elevators generated for me, a quiet smile.
The traveler, used for cleaning and inspecting the underside of the bridge,
is a necessity. Similarly, the four elevators that travel up and down
the inclined surfaces of the east and west pylons, provide access to the
pylon base, the crossbeam and the top. I experienced these elevators
when I was learning from Freyssinet about building stay cables - but
somehow the issue of traveling up and down an incline where the angle
of the incline changes at the pylon crossbeam never caught my curiosity.
posted at: 10:00 | path: | permanent link to this entry
