Junior boarding student Mack Kraus walked away in early December with $100 as the winner of a month-long Bridge Building competition sponsored by the McCallie Science Club. Mack, Ace Damadoran and Mikey Barro were each weekly winners over the course of the contest.
The engineering competition used West Point's online bridge building program, explained Science Club faculty advisor Nancy Olenchek.
"The bridges were completely designed using an engineering software package," Mrs. Olenchek explained. "The West Point Engineering Software folks picked a challenge for us. Then each guy downloaded the free software, logged into the assigned McCallie bridge challenge. The software is a true engineering package, so the guys had to select the materials, choose the design, and watch their budget.
"After each design was submitted, an 18-wheeler carrying a specific load travelled across their bridge. If it did not collapse, then the components of the bridge build changed colors according to several parameters. For example, a part may turn red indicating that the component was under-engineered. Or maybe a part would turn green to show that it was over-engineered and some cost could be removed from the bridge design."
This was the first year the Science Club attempted to organize the competition, but they were very pleased with the amount of interest and participation and plan on making it an annual thing, said officials.
"I was pleasantly surprised at how many guys that aren't science-crazy actually participated," Mrs. Olenchek said.