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Steel Bridge Team Adances to Nationals
 Members of the team gather around their design during
the regional competition. The Department of Civil Engineering's Steel Bridge Team earned a birth in the 2007 National Steel Bridge Competition in California following a third place finish at the Midwest regional qualifier. Building on the success of previous experience, hard work and a diverse team, the student group rose above the competition to clinch a spot in the challenging championship.
“The goal of the competition was to build the most efficient, economical bridge,” said team captain Tina Benedict.
The regional event between nine area colleges took place on March 9-10 at Minnesota State University in Mankato, Minn. The U of M team that participated in the match was sponsored by the student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The bridge was designed to scale and assembled from prefabricated parts during the competition. The scaled-sized 20-by-4 foot steel bridge was then judged on weight, speed of construction, ability to hold a 2,500 pound load and estimated full-size construction cost. Officials also scored the bridges based on the number of people involved in their construction, use of shoring devices, and assessed penalties. The aesthetic appeal of the bridges was also judged in case a tie-breaker was needed to pick a winner.
Teams had up to 45 minutes to complete assembly of their bridges using a maximum of six people. Some components could be preassembled, but only to within small and precisely defined dimensions.
In addition to the opportunity to compete, team advisor Taichiro Okazaki saw the event as a chance to challenge students with a real-world engineering project. "The purpose is for the students to get hands-on experience and a feel for the design and construction of real structures," said Okazaki.
The Midwest regional competition took place inside the field house at Minnesota State University. There, the U of M team faced eight other teams from schools like the University of Iowa and University of North Dakota. "It's definitely the toughest region," said co-captain Andrew Atkins.
In the end, the U of M team initially finished in third place after completing a bridge that took 6.9 minutes to build and weighed 207 pounds. The bridge also stood up well to the competition when it deflected only half an inch under load. The judges estimated the final full-size construction cost of the span to be about $3,394,000. Bridges in the competition took 3.35 minutes to a relatively pokey 38 minutes to build and ranged in projected cost from $2.5 million to near $10 million.
Normally, only the top two teams advance to the national competition. However, this year's competition proved to be an exception. After the event, judges found first place finisher North Dakota State University violated construction procedures. After conferring, they concluded that the top three Midwest teams would compete in the U.S. championship later this spring. The decision meant the U of M team was bound for Los Angeles, Calif., earning a spot in the national competition for the first time in recent memory.
* Update: The Steel Bridge Team finished eighteenth out of 43 teams in the national championship. Congratulations to the team on a commendable performance at nationals.
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