As gaming has entered the realms of education, a new “app” was designed to teach structural engineering, called Truss Me! is creating waves online. In engineering, a truss is a structure comprising five or more triangular units constructed with straight members whose ends are connected at joints referred to as nodes. Truss is derived from Old French trousse, around c.1200, which means “collection of things bound together. A truss structure is composed of bars connected through joints. Joints are very important for truss structures, as they carry all weights (loads) and provide the connection points to the ground (constraints).
The success of the Truss Me! app may be explained by the fact that it feels and looks like a game, even though the simulation engine running behind the scenes is truly state-of-the-art. The app, including its algorithms, was designed by a US professor.
The app is developed to help students acquire some intuition as to how truss structures behave through state of the art simulations.
The game has two playing modes. In the freestyle mode, students are encouraged to design and test their own structures. In the challenges mode, students have to solve structural puzzles in order of increasing level of complexity.
The developer of the game used trusses as the fundamental component of the game for several reasons. Firstly, trusses are everywhere. Students can see them everywhere in their daily life. They are in bridges, roofs, cranes, stadiums, power lines and more.
Trusses are also simple. “All you need to understand the behaviour of a truss is the notion of tension and compression. Consequently, there is no need to explain complicated concepts such as shear and bending. Yet, despite their simplicity, trusses allow you to explain all the main concepts of structural mechanics: loads are related to deformations, deformations are related to stresses, and stresses are related to failure,” the professor says.
Truss Me! utilizes state of the art simulation techniques used by aerospace, mechanical, and civil engineers to provide the most realistic behavior for your structures. It is available for purchase on the App Store.