Student team steels itself for national competition
This is an excerpt of an article originally published on the Engineering website.
After spending hundreds of hours working on their steel bridge in the Sedra Student Design Centre, Waterloo civil engineering students are confident they have what will stand up to the competition in Quebec this week.
About a third of Waterloo’s 45-member Steel Bridge Team are taking part in the Canadian National Steel Bridge Competition beginning May 15 at École Polytechnique de Montréal.
Participating students build, tear down and then erect their bridges for a second time during the four-day event.
On the first day, all are on display for judges and others. The action speeds up on the next as each team is timed rebuilding its bridge one steel piece at a time while judges and the other students watch.
In 2018, Waterloo’s team assembled its bridge in 20 minutes. The fastest team took a mere two minutes.
This week, Waterloo students are aiming to cut their time in about half.
“The most unique thing about our bridge is that its sections connect together by just one bolt per piece,” says Nick Franklin, a third-year civil engineering student and design captain (B-Society). “That should reduce our construction time considerably.”
Read the rest of the article on the Engineering news site.