We have a rule in our shop that anything we fabricate that guests can go on or under needs to be approved by a qualified structural engineer. It is a matter of public safety. But engineers are known for building safe structures and not for telling fun stories. This means we first design the things we want to fabricate, using decades of hands-on construction experience as our guide. We do up detailed drawings of the fanciful creations showing the engineer how we suggest fabricating them. The engineer then does what an engineer is good at, testing our structures with complicated formulas and equations to ensure they are designed correctly to withstand loads, winds, weather and other forces to which a structure is subjected. The engineer sizes the structural steel and creates the ‘official’ drawings which are then submitted to the authorities. The comment we often hear from the engineers is that our suggested structures are plenty strong. This week’s drawings are for the stairs that will lead up to the viewing point in Sprocket, the robot. Plain, ordinary stairs wouldn’t do. This ‘ MAD’, an acronym for ‘Maintenance Access Device’ is manipulated by giant hydraulic cylinders which ‘allow the platform to be raised or lowered to the required height as determined by the size of robot being inspected’. It will be a one of a kind device without a doubt.
