Cal Poly Has Its Strongest-Ever Showing at Steel Bridge Competition
Contact: Amy Hewes
805-756-6402; ahewes@calpoly.edu
SAN LUIS OBISPO — Cal Poly’s Steel Bridge team was tops among national competitors and finished second overall at the annual American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) National Student Steel Bridge Competition, which brought together 48 student teams from across the world.
École de Technologie Supérieure of Montreal placed first and the University of Florida finished third at the competition hosted by Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, May 27-28.
Cal Poly’s strong showing marked the school’s sixth straight year of placing in the event’s top 10 and its second straight year as runner-up.
“The way we look at it, we’re first in the nation, second in the world,” said Drew Glover, senior captain and welding lead for the team. “In that sense, we’ve come home, for the second year in a row, with the best finish Cal Poly has ever had.”
Other Cal Poly Steel Bridge team members included senior captains Steven Haugaard, project manager; Elizabeth Coffey, machining lead; Jimmyhee Quach, construction lead; Tyler van Iderstein, design lead; junior captains Matthew Ramos, Stephen Hager, Jessica Ramirez, Hannah Lancaster, John Stern, Jonathan Diaz, Sara Lashanlo, Kai Ling Liang; and rookie captains Michael Clark, Sarah Shaffer, Gabriela Pascualy, Mitra Fakhry, Brandon Marchell, Julian Lodi, Elaina Ryan, Hayat Hakim and Ryan Harrington. Garrett Hall and Eric Kasper are faculty advisors.
The competition—which celebrated its 25th anniversary this year—is designed as a comprehensive, real-world student project that includes structural design, fabrication, construction planning and execution, and load testing. It’s an extreme test of teamwork and project management, challenging students to produce a scale-model bridge that satisfies stringent requirements in the categories of stiffness, lightness, construction speed, display, efficiency and economy.
Complete rankings are available at www.nssbc.info. Next year’s national competition will be held May 26-27 at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Ore.