MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Following a win at a regional conference, a 17-member team of WVU engineering students will participate in a national bridge building competition in May.
Informed with a 30-page rule book in August 2015 and an-end-of-March 2016 deadline, students worked on a bridge designed to expand a 6’6″ river.
Their final product was a 21-foot steel bridge that weighed 280 pounds.
No part of the bridge could exceed 3 feet in length and had to be constructed with a simple bolt system.
Sean Cottrill, team co-captain, said part of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Virginias Conference competition in Washington D.C. is timed.
“That goes into the factor for the score. Our 58-piece bridge we put together in 15 minutes.”
Additionally, the bridge design followed a strict set of standards and guidelines set by the national organization that could withstand 2,500 pounds of weight.
A lighter bridge heading into the national competition in Provo, Utah could be part of the key to another win said co-captain Marcus Spine.
“We’re going to cut back the weight. But, we’re also going to cut back the deflection so that when we do go to nationals we’re at a more
competitive stage and that we can get a better scoring and a higher ranking,” Shields explained.
The bridge competition is a lesson in projects engineers will likely face upon graduation said former military combat bridge builder and engineering student Lee Shields.
“Like, the Star City Bridge, we’d have to design for different weight loads and things like that on the bridge. This gives us a little bit of hands on experience actually learning how to design a bridge of that capacity just at a smaller scale.”
WVU engineering students will compete among forty teams from across the nation May 27 and 28.