UAF team claims spot in national steel bridge competition

April 20, 2021

UAF photo by JR Ancheta. Members of the UAF 2021 steel bridge team gather for a photo after competing virtually on March 13, at the Engineering Learning and Innovation Facility's high bay. The team’s primary sponsors are the American Society of Civil Engineers and Associated General Contractors.

It took a year longer than they’d hoped, but a team of University of Alaska Fairbanks students has earned a spot in the finals of the national steel bridge building competition.

The UAF team claimed the top score in the 2021 Pacific Northwest Regional AISC Student Steel Bridge Competition, allowing the squad to advance to the national finals against other student engineers. The long-running contest, sponsored by the American Institute of Steel Construction, challenges participants to design and build a steel bridge. Those designs are judged in various categories, including efficiency, weight and speed of construction.

Last year’s competition was abruptly canceled because of pandemic precautions. The UAF team is the defending regional champs, winning the competition the last time it was held in 2019.

This year both the regional competition and finals are in a “compete from campus” format to avoid travel, which lets teams send in their results after assembling their bridges at home. UAF has until May 17 to submit its final project, and a winner should be announced in early June.

The cancellation was disappointing, said UAF team captain Ben VanderHart, but it provided a head start for 2021.

“We were left with half of a bridge we’d already built,” he said. “But they kept the rules the same this year, so we just used the design we already had.”

Other students on the team include Zachary Miller, Branden Hansen, Juliana Rivera, Jason Gresehover, Jenna Hernandez, Bradford Burns, Coleman Baxter and Logan Hammersland. Wilhelm Muench, an instructor with the UAF College of Engineering and Mines, is the team’s advisor. Former team captain Taylor Tharp and lead designer Trevor Morton started work on the design before graduating last year.

UAF photo by JR Ancheta. Logan Hammersland aranges this year's Steel Bridge at the Engineering Learning and Innovation Facility's highbay during practice.

Having a head start on a bridge design was fortunate, because online classes and distanced gatherings made it tough year to assemble a team. Even so, VanderHart estimated that the two-year effort ultimately consisted of several thousand hours of student time.

“It’s been challenging, but it’s also been good because we have so much time,” he said. “Normally we’re just working our butts off for a month or two, but it’s definitely been more chill this year.”

UAF has claimed five of the last six regional bridge-building competitions, and won the national title in 1993.