Steel Bridge Team Wins Regionals, Ticket Punched to National Finals
New Jersey Institute of Technology students will join 43 other collegiate teams vying for the top prize at the 2023 Student Steel Bridge Competition National Finals this summer in San Diego, after winning the New York metropolitan regional event at Rowan University.
"We've got a good group that worked together and did really well, and we were able to fabricate the bridge," said team captain Thomas Hickey, a junior civil engineering major from Rochelle Park. Their top competitor at the regional event was Manhattan College, which is also heading to the finals.
Hickey said that when last year's NJIT bridge fell short in the parts connection category due to a technicality in the rules, he immediately started thinking about improving the connections for this year, and the early preparation paid off.
The bridges are 24-foot spans without center supports. Hickey and his teammates are looking into ways to tweak their bridge for the minimum flex and sway, without adding too much weight or slowing down the construction time, all of which will be judged at the national event.
The competition began in 1987 and NJIT last reached the national event in 2015, finishing an impressive sixth of 47 teams. "There was a stretch where they went for roughly 10 years in a row," said Matthew Bandelt, associate professor and faculty advisor to the steel team.
Bandelt said bridge activities tie back to classroom lessons. "It complements a few areas. From August to October they're doing the engineering design. So they're figuring out, for all the potential load scenarios, how big do the members need to be to have adequate strength and meet the other rule requirements? They then need to go through the construction drawing development," he said. Acrow Bridge, a corporate sponsor led by an alumnus of NJIT, takes the drawings and cuts the pieces. Then the students weld it together.
Hickey discovered the team, which competes in events led by student chapters of the American Society of Civil Engineers, during his open-house tour as a high school student, but they were unable to travel because of the COVID pandemic.
He'll stay on board for next year but intends to pass the leadership torch to others, as he steps back to work on structural integrity which is his favorite part. Turnover was severe during the pandemic and he's determined not to let that happen again. "I want to give everyone else an opportunity to learn and to pass on the knowledge to underclassmen, so they can keep going," whether it's organizational skills, welding, or data analysis, he commented.
Looking to the future, Assistant Professor William Pennock advised another student team building a 3D-printed bridge. The idea for that new category originated with NJIT's Newark College of Engineering and Pennock hopes it will be the wave of the future. There are already places around the world experimenting with real bridges made from 3D-printed materials, and even 3D-printed concrete, he said. There is also an NJIT internal version of the competition, which took place recently and welcomes high school teams.
Pennock added that he's hoping the college can acquire a special 3D printer made for concrete in the near future.