Students to build eight steel bridges at University of Nevada, Reno
Engineering students from eight Universities will be scrambling around the University of Nevada, Reno’s Lawlor Events Center Saturday as they each attempt to build the strongest, lightest, stiffest steel bridge faster than other competitors in the ASCE Mid-Pacific Regional Conference steel bridge competition.
The American Society of Civil Engineer student competition is from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is open to the public with free admission.
“Think of a game show challenge trying to build the strongest and quickest,” Mike Levi, the University’s steel bridge team project leader said. “After the bridge has been built, spectators and team members will collectively hold their breath as 2,500 pounds is loaded onto the bridge, which cannot deflect more than 2 inches.” 
The structures are pre-fabricated in pieces and the teams will construct their 20-foot long scale model bridges inside Lawlor Events Center as quickly as possible. This competition will help students apply math, software, and engineering skills to build a scale size functioning steel bridge that will be load tested.
The Mid-Pacific Regional Conference teams will be competing to qualify for a spot at the 2009 National Bridge Competition at University of Nevada, Las Vegas May 22-23. Except for the University of Nevada, Reno, the teams at the regional conference all represent California universities.
Other engineering competitions held at the Mid-Pacific Conference are the Concrete Canoe Competion, Water Treatment Competition and the less serious events, Concrete Bowling and the Canoe Tug-of-War.
The concrete canoe racing competition will be held near the boat ramp at the Sparks Marina on Friday, April 17. The all-day competition runs from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. with the concrete canoe races from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. and from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Aesthetics and display judging and canoe dunk test is from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. and the canoe durability judging is from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.
For more information visit http://www.midpac2009.com/ www.nevadacanoe.com www.asce.org.
Technorati Tags: RENO, University of Nevada Reno, Lawlor Events Center, ASCE Mid-Pacific Regional Conference steel bridge competition, The American Society of Civil Engineers, Mike Levi, 2009 National Bridge Competition, UNLV, Robert Coomes, NCET, Nevada’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology
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