Beyond the practical skills students learn, the competition lets students apply creative thinking to real-world situations, says lead design engineer Dan Lutz, a civil engineering student from Waterloo, Ill. “A lot of real-world bridges, such as overpasses and small creek bridges, can be classified as so-called ‘cookbook’ designs (everything is designed from tables)," says Lutz. “The bridges that are taken to competition are far from cookbook. If they were, they wouldn’t go very far."

The team’s brainstorming sessions have produced a variety of unusual ideas. “One of the more eccentric ideas I’ve heard from the team was to fill the steel tubing on the bridge with helium to make it more buoyant and hence, weigh less," Lutz says. “We didn’t use the idea, but it’s a good example of team members thinking outside of the box."

No bridge design can be reused because the National Steel Bridge Rules Committee’s specifications vary slightly from year to year, says UMR project manager Lauren Roberts, a civil engineering student from Columbia, Ill. The only set guideline is that the bridge is a 1:10 scale model, or about 27 feet long. Entries are judged on the efficiency of the bridge in terms of weight, rigidity and ease of assembly.

The UMR team spends approximately nine months conceptualizing, designing and fabricating a bridge that they hope will deliver some stiff competition among fellow steel bridge aficionados. “The design phase of our project is pretty much split into two separate parts," Lutz says. “There is the actual number crunching and computer modeling part, and the other part of design is the conceptual design, which involves the entire team."

Following the design phase of the project, team members work every night for weeks during the spring semester to complete the bridge in time for competition. They also spend time practicing the assembly of their bridge. Each piece of the bridge must fit into a box that is limited in size and shape, Roberts says.

During the competition, team members must construct their bridge quickly, carefully and efficiently. Teams are penalized for dropping pieces during assembly, or stepping into an imaginary river under the bridge. Once constructed, the team loads the bridge with about 2,000 pounds, and measures the deflection of the structure.

Team members put all sorts of skills to the test when creating a steel bridge, from TIG (tungsten inert gas) welding and milling to organizational skills like public relations. “The students gain an appreciation for the requirements of an engineering project and gain practical experience in structural steel design, steel fabrication, construction planning, organization and teamwork," says faculty advisor Roger LaBoube, a UMR civil engineering professor.

The UMR Steel Bridge Team has competed in regional contests with about a dozen other teams across the Midwest during the past 12 years, going on to nationals 75 percent of the time. The team placed third in the nationals in 1993 and finished second in the 2003 American Society of Civil Engineers Regional Steel Bridge Competition, taking part in the national competition in May 2003 in San Diego, Calif.

The team will compete in the 2004 regional competition in late April at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.