Steel Bridge Team Advances to National Competition for Ninth Time
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Kathleen McPartland, Tel: 530-898-4260
Jon Mohle, Civil Engineering
530-898-4628
Steel Bridge Team Advances to National Competition
for Ninth Time
The California State University, Chico Steel Bridge Team is advancing to the national competition on May 28-29 this year at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. This will be Chico State’s ninth consecutive invitation to the national competition. The team qualified by their 2nd place finish at the Mid-Pacific Regional Steel Bridge Competition held at California State University, Sacramento on April 9.
This year’s regional competition hosted schools from around the state—including teams from CSU, Chico, UC Davis, UC Berkeley, CSU, Sacramento, San Jose State, San Francisco State, and CSU, Fresno—as well as a team from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, coming for the second year.
Preparation for the competition began at the start of the 2004 fall semester, with Professor Jon Mohle, Department of Civil Engineering, as advisor. At that time two design teams were formed, led by Chico State students Jeremy Pierce and Kenny Blake. From the two designs produced by the teams, a bridge was selected for competition based on assembly time, structural performance and construction cost.
In the start of the 2005 spring semester, the build team—Jeff Rabo, Kenny Blake, L.S. Williams, Buddy Thomas, Chris Fritz, Tanner Micheli, Chin Leung and Jason Barnum—began the fabrication of the 22-foot steel structure.
Each team entering the competition was faced with the challenge of erecting the bridge designed to span a specified natural wetland. The competition is set up as if there were a wetland, with applicable environmental considerations. For example, only temporary piers could be used, and construction equipment was permitted only on the boundaries of the wetland and a designated causeway.
The bridges are scored on overall performance based on construction speed, stiffness, structural efficiency, lightness, economy and aesthetics. Chico’s construction team— consisting of Rabo, Blake, Fritz and Micheli—erected the steel truss bridge in a little over 10 minutes. The team took first place in the category of lightness, with Chico’s bridge weighing in at only 137 pounds.
“Our timed assembly went very well. We actually began construction with our best assembly to date; however, a small glitch in assembly cost us a little time, said Rabo, construction captain. “Overall, our construction speed was fast enough to make us very competitive on the score sheets.”
Current efforts are in place to improve the team’s overall score for the upcoming national competition. CSU, Chico won the National competition in 2000 and is committed to achieving another win for 2005.