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Ed Yeates ReportingFive hundred students from 45 colleges and universities have been building steel bridges today, hoping they won't collapse under stress at an event tomorrow.
From campuses around the country, plus Canada and Mexico, these scale model steel bridges, 20 feet long and four feet wide, will come under fire tomorrow as judges throw 25-hundred pound weights on them. If they deform beyond two inches or collapse, they're out of the running.
A team's bridge from South Carolina has large trusses.
Tim Strickland, Clemson University: "When this starts to deform and compress, it gives us a little more resistance to that downward motion."
To the lay eye, all these bridges may look the same, but they're not. Each team has its own design feature, many of which you can't see at first glance.
Failure is not the only worry here. Bridges have to be disassembled tonight and rebuilt again for tomorrow's contest. Teams get more points the faster they build their bridges. The one from Cal Poly State has speed connections and interlocking welds.
Shaun Young, University of Utah: "Last year ours didn't even make it. It just moved too much. The joints were too bad."
For the University of Utah this year? Only one speed bolt in every single member, and they're strong!
Teams also get points for how good the bridge looks.
Christopher Hall, Cal Poly State University: "Just like the models you get to grease 'em up baby, you go to grease 'em up."
Aaron Buchanan, Organizing Committee Chairman: "There's always that fight between architecture and engineering. Engineers want to make it work, architects want to make it look pretty."
So, tomorrow, the big test of speed and strength, and in the end, one big winner.
