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Bridge Building Competition

Amanda Liang with the winning bridge design. Photo by Kevin Coughlin/BNL

Amanda Liang, a ninth grader from Paul J. Gelinas Junior High School in Setauket, won first place at the 45th annual Bridge Building Competition hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory on April 3. 

The competition shows students in grades nine through 12 what it’s like to be an engineer as they attempt to design a strong bridge out of only basswood and glue with a set of challenging specifications in mind. Their structures were put to the test under a crushing machine that slowly added more and more weight from above until the bridges broke or bent more than one inch.

The event is organized by Brookhaven Lab’s Office of Educational Programs (OEP) to advance its mission to cultivate the next generation of STEM professionals.

Julia Pincott won second place for her bridge design. Photo courtesy of John Glenn High School

“I want you to imagine your future selves as professional engineers and you’re contributing something important to society,” Bernadette Uzzi, OEP’s manager for K-12 programs told students at the start of the competition. “Perhaps you’re designing a bridge, and you have to continually refine the structure to adapt to our ever-changing world, or maybe you’re here at Brookhaven involved in constructing our new Electron-Ion Collider, which is a ground-breaking machine that will unravel the mysteries of nature’s strongest force. Regardless of your future career plans, today you are engineering students and you’re part of Brookhaven’s journey.”

Uzzi also reflected on the recent bridge collapse in Baltimore: “I’m reminded why it’s so important to give students real-world, relevant experiential learning experiences like this event.”

This year, students from 14 schools around Long Island submitted 240 bridges — 193 of which met all qualifications for testing such as using a symmetrical design and weighing under 25 grams.

Bridges are ranked based on efficiency scores that are calculated from the load the bridge supports divided by the mass of the bridge — all in grams.

Liang’s design earned the top spot with an efficiency of 3,441.43.

“I looked at a bunch of old national bridges and I took a lot of inspiration from them,” Liang said, adding later, “I was really excited especially because it was my first year. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go. I didn’t expect this.”

Alexander Song and Daniel Liang, both juniors from Ward Melville High School in East Setauket, took second place and third place with efficiencies of 2,536.142 and 2,112.446, respectively.

The top two winners in Brookhaven’s regional competition qualified to compete in the International Bridge Contest on April 27 in New Philadelphia, Ohio.

Competition judges also issued an award for aesthetic bridge design to Julia Pincott, a senior at John Glenn High School in Elwood.

Some of the bridges entered into the competition. Photo from BNL

Throughout the bridge testing day, students had the chance to meet engineers from across the Lab, including longtime contest volunteers and Jordanna Kendrot, a safety engineer at the DOE-Brookhaven Site Office. Kendrot shared how in her own path to becoming a researcher, she found it was important to expand her studies beyond only engineering courses.

“It’s really about broadening your horizons and questioning the norms in engineering that will help us keep moving forward,” Kendrot said.

Amid all the bridge crushing, competition organizers tossed Brookhaven Lab and science trivia questions to students, who had a chance to win Lab merchandise for their correct answers.

Competitors tested their engineering skills in an additional STEM challenge to construct a miniature floating table. Students were also treated to a tour of the National Synchrotron Light Source II, a DOE Office of Science user facility that creates light beams 10 billion times brighter than the sun.

“This year’s bridge contest was a new experience for everyone,” STEM educator and event co-coordinator Theresa Grimaldi said. “It was the first time OEP organized this contest to be during school hours and it was such a pleasure to have the students here for the whole day, getting to know the engineers and touring the site.”

Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit science.energy.gov.

Awards Ceremony for Bridge Contest 2023
High school students become model bridge engineers in annual contest

Jacqueline Seifert, a senior at Commack High School, won first place in the 2023 Bridge Building Competition hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory on March 30.

The annual contest puts model bridges constructed by Long Island High School students to the ultimate pressure test. Students apply physics and engineering principles to build basswood structures to a set of specifications. Then, their bridges are judged based on efficiency, which is calculated using the mass of the bridge and the amount of weight it can support before breaking or bending more than one inch.

“This competition is an introduction to the world of engineering,” said Scott Bronson, manager for K–12 programs at the Lab’s Office of Educational Programs (OEP). “At Brookhaven Lab, engineers of all types support our science goals at world-class facilities and the DOE mission. We hope this contest inspires students to explore paths in science, technology, math, and engineering and to return to the Lab as interns and future employees.”

OEP received a total 142 bridges, of which 91 qualified for testing, captured below.

An awards ceremony to honor the winners was held at Brookhaven Lab on April 6. The top two winners in this regional competition qualify to compete in the International Bridge contest on April 29 in Chicago, IL.

Seifert, who earned second place in last year’s local competition and placed 16th in the previous international contest, designed a bridge that weighed 23.47grams and recorded an efficiency of 1342.22. As the testing machine slowly added more and more weight to Seifert’s W truss design, the Science Learning Center erupted in impressed “oohs” as the load hit close to 70 lbs. Retired Brookhaven Lab engineer and longtime competition supporter Marty Woodle noted right away “that’s an international contender.”

Seifert, who will pursue civil engineering at Vanderbilt University, said it was rewarding to watch her design hit that high bridge load. “The most exciting part was the experimentation and seeing what works and what doesn’t, finding the weak points in my bridge so I could continue to make it better,” she said. “I’ll see how it goes in the international competition.”

Katherine Liang, a junior at Ward Melville High School, who garnered first place in two previous contests and 9th and the last international competition, placed second this year with a design that realized an efficiency of 1094.44.

Third-place winner Jonathan Thomas, a junior at Walt Whitman High School, constructed a bridge that recorded an efficiency of 1048.18. After conducting bridge demos in a physics lab at school, Thomas learned his design needed more horizontal support and looked to previous competition winners for potential engineering ideas.“It’s definitely a career path I want to go into,” he said.

Aidan Quinn, a junior at Smithtown High School East won this year’s aesthetic award. Quinn’s double arch design was neat with clean lines, inspired by a photo his father showed him that captured a historical moment when a pilot flew a biplane under a bridge that once crossed the Niagara River.

“I would love to major in biomedical engineering,” Quinn said. “I’m glad I was able to participate in the competition. It was a great experience.” 

Katherine Liang of Paul J. Gelinas Junior High School with the bridge that earned her first place in BNL’s annual Bridge Building Contest

Sometimes the term building bridges takes on a more literal meaning. 

David Liang of Ward Melville High School placed second in the bridge building contest.

The Office of Educational Programs (OEP) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory announced local students who earned the top spots in both the  2021 Bridge Building Contest and 2021 Maglev Competition during an online awards ceremony on April 16.

Each competition, held virtually this year, offers students a hands-on opportunity to apply math, science, and technology principles as they design and build bridges and magnetic levitation cars.

“Conceiving, designing, and building the one-of-a-kind facilities at Brookhaven National Laboratory takes extraordinary vision on the part of our scientists and our engineers to advance our science mission,” said OEP Manager Kenneth White. 

“These two competitions test the design and analytical skill of contestants to create bridges and vehicles to exacting specifications and performance expectations much like our facilities demand of our staff. We hope some of these contestants will be our staff one day to take on another engineering challenge supporting extraordinary discoveries.”

Bridge Building Competition

Victor Prchlik of Ward Melville High School took third place in the bridge building contest.

In the annual Bridge Building Contest, high school students became engineers competing to construct the most efficient model bridge out of lightweight wood. Efficiency is calculated from the bridge’s weight and the weight the bridge can hold before breaking or bending more than one inch. The higher the efficiency, the better the design and construction.

Dedicated Brookhaven Lab staff engineers and technicians tested 40 qualifying structures during a live online event on April 8.

Katherine Liang, a 9th grade student of Paul J. Gelinas Junior High School earned first place with a bridge that weighed 18.7 grams, supported 38.6 pounds. The bridge earned an efficiency of 936.29.

For some students, a trial-and-error process was key to solidifying a design. Liang said she built and tested five bridges by weighing them down with a bucket of sand before submitting her final winning structure.

Second place went to David Liang of Ward Melville High School, whose bridge weighed 19 grams, held 36.4 pounds had an efficiency of 868.98.

Victor Prchlik, also from Ward Melville High School, placed third with a bridge that weighed 23.7 and supported 44.5 pounds with an efficiency of 851.87

Jonathan Chung of Smithtown East High School won this year’s Aesthetic Award.

“The whole process was fun from start to finish,” Chung said. “One of the most challenging parts was getting the glue to stick the wood together. I ended up solving that problem by using a hairdryer to dry it.”

This year’s Bridge Building Contest Aesthetic Award went to Jonathan Chung of Smithtown East High School, pictured with physics teacher Dr. Gillian Winters.

Brookhaven Lab staff tested magnetic levitation cars built by students from Island Trees Middle School and Bay Shore Middle School to see who came up with the fastest design.

MAGLEV Contest

This year’s Maglev Contest for 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students included two main categories for speed and appearance. Brookhaven Lab staff tested 21 maglev cars for speed on a fixed gravity track–13 of which reached the finish line.

Brady Leichtman of Bay Shore Middle School won first place in the speed category.

Second place went to Isabella Rouleau of Bay Shore Middle School. Jesse Bonura of Island Trees Middle School placed third and also won the top spot in the competition’s appearance category with a futuristic blue car. Bay Shore Middle School students Amber Marquez and Andrea Romero, placed second and third in the appearance category, respectively.

Brookhaven Lab staff tested magnetic levitation cars to see who came up with the fastest design. Bonura found that part of the fun was testing and reengineering the maglev’s design. “We’d make it quicker and test it over and over again to make it perfect,” Bonura said.

The maglev contest is based on research by two Brookhaven engineers, the late Gordon Danby and James Powell, who invented and patented maglev technology—the suspension, guidance, and propulsion of vehicles by magnetic forces.

Magnetic properties give the maglev trains their extraordinary capabilities for speed and stability. These same principles—using magnetic forces to move matter — are used in world-class research facilities at Brookhaven Lab, including the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) — which are both DOE Office of Science user facilities. Magnetic properties allow the machines to move particles at nearly the speed of light for research purposes.

Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science.

Photos courtesy of BNL

Justin Zhang

Justin Zhang, a junior at Ward Melville High School in East Setauket, won first place in the 2019 Model Bridge Building Contest at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton.

In this annual regional competition, coordinated by BNL’s Office of Educational Programs, high school students across Long Island design, construct and test model bridges made of basswood that are intended to be simplified versions of real-world bridges. Participants must apply physics and engineering principles to meet a stringent set of specifications. Their bridges are judged based on efficiency, which is calculated using the weight of the bridge and the amount of weight it can support before breaking or bending more than one inch. A separate award is given to the student with the most aesthetic design.

For this year’s competition, 132 students from 15 high schools registered bridges. Fifty-two students representing nine schools qualified. An awards ceremony to honor the winners was held at BNL on March 15.

Zhang, whose bridge weighed 12.75 grams and had an efficiency of 2819.03, was unable to attend the ceremony because he was participating in the New York State Science Olympiad. Zhang’s father accepted the award on his behalf.

“I had built bridges, towers, and, more recently, boomilevers (kind of like the arm at the end of a crane) as a participant on my school’s Science Olympiad team and I really love civil engineering,” said Zhang. 

“So, the Bridge Building Contest perfectly fit both my past experience and interests. Through the competition, I was able to improve upon the ideas that I had developed in years prior working on engineering challenges and apply some new things that I had learned. It was particularly challenging for me to adjust to all the specific rules involved in the construction process,” he explained.

Gary Nepravishta, a freshman at Division Avenue High School in Levittown, took second place with his bridge weighing 18.2 grams and having an efficiency of 1949.45.

With a mass of 13.88 grams and efficiency of 1598.68, the bridge built by senior William Musumeci of Smithtown High School East won third place. “I built one bridge and tested it to see where it broke, and then I used a computer-aided design program to make a stronger bridge.” said Musumeci, who will be attending Farmingdale University to study construction engineering.

Sophomore Benjamin Farina of John Glenn High School in Elwood won the aesthetic award for best-looking bridge.

An honorary award was given to retired BNL engineer Marty Woodle, who was recognized for his 40 years of service as a volunteer for the competition. 

“If you become an engineer, you are not necessarily trapped into one little aspect of science,” said Woodle. “The world is open to you to do some really fascinating work.”

Zhang’s and Nepravishta’s bridges have been entered into the 2019 International Bridge Building Contest, to be held in Baltimore, Maryland, in early April. For more information, visit www.science.energy.gov.