The “Mother of All Demos” happened 55 years ago today : Global Nerdy on Computing innovations happen every 13 years, and we’re at the start of a new one.My new PyGamer device : Global Nerdy on Scenes (and full video!) from my “How Computers Work Under the Hood” presentation.With the two previous points and the time constraints in mind, explore the possibilities.Īlthough the exercise is now over, we’re keeping our bridge around as a little reminder of the design lessons we learned - we plan to use them in building our software. The corollary from the previous point is that the solution may look different from what you might expect.It offered the advantages of strength and ease of construction. This might be a good approach if the materials we were given were popsicle sticks, but since we were working with mostly paper and specific height and span requirements, we decided that a tubular design would be the best approach. The other teams built structures that took their inspiration from real-world bridges. Go with the strengths of the material you’re given.It’s an oft-repeated mantra in Agile Development, but it’s something that programmers sometimes forget - probably because we often erroneously equate “simple” with “stupid”. Build the simplest thing that could possibly work.It also yielded some unexpected lessons about design: The exercise demonstrated the expected points about teamwork (a good leader, clear communication between team members and cooperation) and blitz planning (a simple plan, an iterative approach and adapting to real-world feedback). I’m certain that this cut down on the construction time significantly. The pillars were mostly identical, so the guys building them consulted with each other throughout the building process.Īlthough we were given scissors, our design didn’t require any cutting. The other two members designed and built the pillars. The span design was my idea, so I was assigned to build it with the assistance of the team leader. This gave the span a slight slope to ensure that the ball would travel from one end of the bridge to the other (there was no requirement that it had to be a two-way bridge). For extra stability, we attached one paper plate to the bottom of one pillar and two paper plates to the bottom of the other pillar. The pillars of the bridge were each made with a 2-ply roll of easel paper, with a plastic beer cup at the top and base. The design was unconventional, but there wasn’t any rule that the bridge couldn’t be a covered bridge. The span of the bridge was made with 4 sheets of easel paper: 2 rolls, each one a 2-ply roll of paper, which were then joined together with a one-foot overlap in the middle for extra strength. The bridge we built, viewed from another angle. The last team, Team 3, weren’t able to complete their bridge in time. Their bridge met the “freestanding” and “4 foot span” criteria, but didn’t meet the “ball must be 2 feet off the ground throughout its travel across the bridge” criterion. Here’s the bridge that our team built:Īnother team, Team 1, took all the allotted time. Not only did we build a bridge that met all the criteria, but we finished its construction in 10 minutes and had enough time to hang out in the lounge while the other teams kept working. I’ll cut to the chase: the team I was on, Team 2, won. Each team had to pick a team leader, who would direct the activities and make notes of the plan on the card. We were given a stack of 3″ by 5″ index cards for writing out our plan. We were given ten minutes to come up with a construction plan and twenty minutes to construct the bridge. 8 sheets of easel pad paper (each sheet is about 36″ by 24″). The items with which each team was allowed to construct the bridge were:
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