Construction of Frame for sensor carrier in research lab

 I conduct research for the CESEP in the civil/environmental department at Mines. A lot of the work I'm responsible for is with the sensors and calibration and data analysis, but recently I've been working on installing a new system in the tank we use for research. The tank is 8' by 16' and 4' deep, and holds maybe 20 tons of sand. The system is a "traverse system" that was initially designed for and installed in a wind tunnel in another campus building. The system carries a device that holds multiple sensors and move them around the tank. Because we want moveable sensors that can be controlled by motors and a computer program, we are working on putting the traverse system in the tank in our lab.

I made a couple connections between this task and certain construction/restoration projects, specifically those that are highly constrained and low on funding. I need to mostly use what we have in the lab because of limited resources, even though many modifications need to be made to get everything to work properly. 

I do enjoy the building part of it, coming up with the elevated frame that needs to hold the device arm above the tank in order to avoid the horizontal cables. I guess this relates to the need for barricading and movement of materials and strategic construction order to account for the movement of cranes on project sites. In the last couple weeks of my construction engineering course, I have been surprised to learn just how much effort has to go into planning the construction process. One thing needs to be done before another, and that before another and so on. I've encountered a couple of these roadblocks and have gotten better at thinking ahead to construct the entire system and allow for experiments to keep happening properly.