Bridge Builders Take Third at International Competition

March 13, 2009

A team of six civil engineering students and one medical student from McMaster are celebrating their third place victory at the 25th annual Troitsky Bridge Building Competition held March 6 in Montreal.

Their bridge made of wooden popsicle sticks, toothpicks, dental floss and white all-purpose glue was able to support 981 kg, about the same weight as 16 average-sized women or 13 average-sized men.

Team members included: Zane Kharas – Captain (Level 5 Civil Engineering & Management); Chandan Pujapanda (Level 4 Civil Engineering); Chetan Mistry (Level 5 Civil Engineering & Management); Mohammed Eqdaih (Level 4 Civil Engineering); Rajeev Shanmugalignam (Level 5 Civil Engineering & Management); Junaid Rizwan (Level 4 Civil Engineering); and Erik Van Tol (Medical School).

The team, named String Theory, took home $500 and a trophy. This is the highest result achieved by a McMaster team at the competition. The winning team from Chicoutimi left with its six-year winning streak intact and $1,000. Second-place Ryerson won $750.

"String Theory" wins Third in 25th Annual Troitsky Bridge Building Competition

There were 29 teams entered in the competition, including five from McMaster, representing 11 universities from Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and Vermont.

Judging of winning bridges is based on load capacity, design efficiency, originality, and overall presentation.

The competition had its roots in the 1960s when Michael Troitsky, a professor of civil engineering at Concordia University, worked with students to build scale models of bridges they were studying. The first formal competition was held in 1984.