Students in the Wayne State College of Engineering are preparing themselves for an upcoming regional competition hosted by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

WSU engineering students Jacob Finkelman and Paul Chabot are co-captains of the steel bridge competition this year.

“We have to manufacture the bridge ourselves,” Chabot said.

The team must not only design the bridge, but it also must put the pieces together and then compete with it. This gives them, according to Chabot, experience with “practical implementation.”

The regiment for designing and building is very meticulous.

“Every year they have new rules,” Finkelman said.

Each year, the bridge must be created entirely from scratch. When finished, the bridge and the teams are judged on an elaborate point scale consisting of criteria like how much time it took to complete the bridge, how many people it took to construct the bridge, how quickly it was constructed and how much the bridge deflects or bends at certain points.

The team is also under a space constraint. There are penalties for crossing or stepping into a taped off area that represents the “water” under the bridge. The bridge is to be 23 feet long, and it must hold 2,500 pounds of weight.

In addition, the bridge must be able to be broken down into smaller parts; this year, they cannot be longer than 3 feet in length. Each of the parts will be tested. The parts must fit into a box, which is sized by the judges, a method similar to those used to measure carry-on luggage at an airport.

Each part, after passing inspection from the judges, will then be placed about 75 feet from the building area. Team members are to carry each piece, one by one, to the location that they are to build over. In the past, bridges have weighed up to 600 pounds.

Weights will be placed on the bridge as part of the judging process. This gives the judges a way to test the bridge’s integrity. The judges are looking for deflection, or the bending and changing of the shape of the different parts of the bridge.

The team is penalized if the bridge deflects at certain parts, which can range from half an inch to 2 inches.

The team is currently looking to work with experienced machinists, designers and any volunteers who are interested in the competition.

“Anyone in the community is welcome to help and give advice,” Finkelman said. “We’re happy to teach as we learn.”

WSU is one of the founding members of the ASCE steel bridge competition. In recent years, the university has not competed in the event, but that will change this year thanks to the current work of its leaders. Next year’s competition will be hosted at the university.

“It’s a lot of work, but you have the opportunity to be a part of things you normally won’t do as an engineering student, like networking with designers and machinists,” Chabot said.

The competition will be held from March 30 until April 1.