USU Steel Bridge Team constructs win at region
In an average of nine minutes, a team of USU engineering students can build a bridge out of nothing but some metal bars and some nuts and bolts.
That ability won them the region title in the 2008 Steel Bridge competition held last April in Colorado and sent them to the national competition in Florida in May, where they also competed.
Jared Olsen, now a graduate student in civil engineering with an emphasis in structural engineering, said he and some other students saw the previous year’s team compete and got excited about the annual competition held by the American Society of Civil Engineers (or ASCE) and decided to compete.
“Bridges are intriguing and we got excited,” he said. “It looked like a lot of fun.”
To compete, teams had to fit all materials into a box and assemble it on-site. Olsen said they practiced setting it up a lot before the competition, starting out with building it in about 15 minutes to an average of nine. The bridge was then tested for strength. The amount the bridge deflected, or bowed under the weight, was measured as part of the team’s score.
“The tricky part is that you want to make it strong but it has to be quick and only made of small pieces,” Olsen said.
Overall, the bridge was judged for construction speed, deflection and weight. USU’s bridge deflected an average of 5/8″ and weighed approximately 260 pounds.
Logan Julander, another participant and also now working on a graduate degree in civil engineering, said he thought the competition was good experience for what he plans to do after graduating.
“The process was a good experience,” he said. “We had to go through the design, the fabrication and all the way to construction. It was good to see the whole process.”
Julander said the winner from the national competition in Florida was able to work off of their school’s previous competition piece. This was not an option for USU, he said, because the last bridge failed at the regional competition. It took too long to assemble and wasn’t strong enough, he said, so they had to make this year’s bridge from scratch. Winning this year, then, was a bigger deal, Olsen said, as was doing well in the national competition.
“Out of 40 schools, we finished in 20-something,” he said. “We did our very best and planned really well. I don’t think I would change anything. We did the best with what we had.”
While most of the schools spent thousands of dollars on their bridges, he said, USU spent less than $1000. Some of that funding came from the school but most of it and the money to travel to Colorado and Florida was raised, he said. In all, they raised about $10,000 through various sponsors.
“We sold out,” he said.
Both Olsen and Julander said they planned on helping next year’s team prepare for the competition.
“With what we had we did really well,” Julander said, “but I think we could have made it lighter and found a faster way to put it up.”
-lisa.m.christensen