Thornton Tomasetti Team: Taylor Agena, Noanah Malati, Marah Kluge, Lucy Torgerson
2025-2026: In collaboration with Thornton Tomasetti, this student team developed a tool to automate the selection of timber connectors. Selecting connections for mass timber projects is currently a long and tedious process because manufacturer catalogs present allowable load tables, geometry limits, and fire-rating constraints in inconsistent formats, often leading to human error.
The team developed the Timber Connection Selection (TCS) tool, which collects connector data into a standardized format in Excel and uses Grasshopper, a visual coding program, to analyze and eliminate connectors based on case studies provided by the engineer. Results are displayed on a web application called ShapeDiver, where users can input project-specific information and view an organized table of viable connections with sortable results and 3D visual representations. The team tested the tool through thorough verification processes and used building plans provided by their liaisons to design case studies and refine the user experience. Deliverables included the functional TCS tool, a detailed user manual, and recommendations for future tool expansion and maintenance.