PORT ANGELES — Bridges built by a new crop of budding engineers at Port Angeles High School are heading to statewide competition Saturday.
Three student-built Popsicle stick bridges were selected Wednesday to be entered in the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 21st annual Popsicle Stick Bridge Competition on Saturday at the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field in Seattle.
Of the seven bridges built by students, the three selected for the contest are:
■ A solo effort by freshman Linus Waddell, 15.
■ A team-built triple-truss bridge by juniors Emily Traughber, 16, and Ashley Howell, 17.
■ An arched bridge by sophomores Lauren Rankan, Owen Nevaril and Bonnie Sires, all 16.
All seven bridges will be tested with students eligible for scholarships, but only three entries per school are allowed in the competition.
Three prizes
The competition will award three prizes for combined strength and aesthetic scores, three prizes for the strongest bridges and three prizes for most aesthetic bridges.
Each year, the rules for building the bridges are slightly different — the bridge must be longer, or higher, or taller — changes designed to challenge students to engineer for varying conditions and needs for the theoretical users of their bridges.
This year, the bridges must be 25 inches to 28 inches in length and include a requirement for a high clearance in the center to allow for navigation underneath — and can weigh no more than 300 grams, or 0.66 pounds.
To further challenge the students, they have to prepare four separate locations where the test weight will be applied, which will be chosen at random for each bridge.
“They have to engineer a real bridge this year,” said Gene Unger, a civil engineer adviser for the group.
Hours of effort
Unger noted that of the 28 students who initially signed up in November, only 15 were able to complete their projects after discovering how many hours and how much effort go into building a bridge from Popsicle sticks.
“It was a lot more work than we anticipated,” Lauren said of her team’s elegant arching bridge.
Engineers who evaluated the arching bridge said they weren’t expecting it to hold much weight but that the design and construction were clean and attractive, so it should score a lot of aesthetic points.
Emily said she was in physics teacher Derek Johnson’s class, who is the adviser for the student engineering team, and often spent a lot of time gazing at broken bridges hanging on the rafters — a collection of past years’ entries.
Johnson often uses the bridges as concrete examples of physics concepts they are learning, she said.
“It relates to a lot we do in class,” she said.
New blood
For the past three years, the competition has been dominated by members of the Roughriders Class of 2015, with the recently graduated seniors accounting for many top-three finishes throughout their high school careers.
Many of those students are now enrolled in university engineering programs, and only one student from past competitions returned this year out of the 15 students who were expected to complete their bridges in time for the competition, Johnson said.
The new crop of bridge builders comes from all grade levels, with only one senior, he said.
Johnson said he believes the school’s reputation for being one of the top competitors will be well-defended this Saturday.
“I think we have several real strong ones this year,” he said.
Local scholarships
Local scholarships will be awarded at the engineering club meeting Feb. 10.
When the students return home, builders of the three highest overall ranked Port Angeles-built bridges will receive $500 scholarships, with $300 for the second ranked and $200 for the third ranked, as determined by the engineer advisers.
The engineering scholarship consortium includes civil engineers from Zenovic & Associates, Gene Unger Engineering and Northwest Territories Inc.
Each of the firms, Clallam County and the Port of Port Angeles provides volunteer engineering mentors to teach students the basics of bridge engineering.
The engineers remain available to students as mentors after the contest and offer job shadowing and other help after the contest.
________
Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
