During the bitter cold weather of the past winter, a team of  CEMS students could be found in an unheated Vermont barn, welding and fabricating parts of a bridge designed to span Kuprica’s Nogo R iver, joining its farmland with its capital city.

If you’ve never heard of the Nogo R iver or the country of Kuprica, there’s a good reason for that. Both were dreamed up by the A merican Institute of Steel Construction (A ISC) and the A merican Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE) as part of a hypothetical problem that young college engineers must solve in the groups’ annual National Steel Bridge Competition. The 23-year-old event challenges students to design a bridge to address that problem, and then fabricate a 1:10 scale model that is judged on how well it meets the guidelines as well as on qualities such as strength and lightness.

It’s the type of design and building challenge that draws ambitious engineering students from schools including the University of Vermont’s College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of California, Berkeley. Last year, the CEMS student chapter of the ASCE ranked among the top three schools in the Northeast regional competition, ensuring the club a place in the national field. “You have a packet of rules, and you are trying to figure out the best possible solutions,” says Jamie Martell ’16, who was on last year’s team and is serving as the president of the ASCE student chapter in the current academic year. “Last year, when we came  in second place in regionals and were able to go to nationals, it was crazy, seeing it all come together when you had nothing eight months ago.”

The team started by planning the bridge, relying on a trapezoidal design. Then, with a budget of about $4,000, the team bought the steel and other supplies it would need to make the design a reality. As winter arrived, they were ready to start construction. But there was one issue: not all the members had completed their required safety training which would allow them access to the prototype shop in Votey Hall. Thankfully, Iain Portalupi, one of the co-captains, offered the use of his family’s barn in Barre, where he had shop tools and equipment.

“It was so cold,” notes Kevin Nguyen ’15, who served as a co-captain of the steel bridge team last year, about working in the barn. “We had to bring in portable kerosene heaters and take a break every hour because we couldn’t feel our fingers or toes.”

The cold hours spent constructing the bridge paid off in more ways than one. Aside from qualifying for nationals, the team gained fabrication experience to complement their engineering know-how. “As an engineer, you will never build something you designed yourself,” says Martell. “For me, it was good to get that experience.”

“Not all teams build their own bridges,” notes Nguyen. Teams with larger budgets often have the ability to hire contractors to professionally fabricate their bridges. “We want to learn about the fabrication process, and not just send it out,” he adds. “We are competitive, but we are also trying to better ourselves.”

The team drove 24 hours to reach the national competition at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, breaking the drive up into shifts. A long the way, they stopped in St. Louis to visit the city’s arch, which they had studied in the classroom. (It was “huge and mind-boggling,” Martell notes.)

The team’s bridge, which had its superstructure painted green in a nod to U VM, placed 32nd out of about 50 competitors. Observing the designs from rival clubs has provided some ideas for this year’s bridge, although designing won’t begin until after the A ISC and ASCE post the new competition rules this fall. Reaching the nationals in 2016 is on the team’s agenda, Martell notes. He’d also like to get more students involved in the project.

“It’s more than just building the bridge,” Nguyen says. “The main point was about team work. No one person can just build this bridge.” He adds, “It’s a blast!

(This story was from the Fall 2015 issue of SUMMIT. You can read more here.)