The West Point Bicentennial Engineering Design Contest
Building bridges online
Jamie Jensen is the first to admit that his bridge won't exactly win the bridge beautiful contest. But it's sturdy and cheap -- and that's giving him an edge. Jensen, a senior at Kuna High School in Kuna, Idaho, is on one of 17,502 teams (and counting) to enter the West Point Bicentennial Engineering Design Contest, being conducted online.
Anyone can go to the Web site, download the bridge-building software and within minutes, come up with a bridge design that can be tested to make sure it can carry weight. To enter the actual contest, however, you have to be in kindergarten through 12th grade. (The contest ends Feb. 28.) The site immediately tells entrants how their bridge ranks, based on cost.
Winning designs must be both structurally sound and inexpensive to build.
Jensen says he entered the contest to fulfill a class requirement. But he says he had fun with the project. He doesn't know if he'll study engineering, but he's thinking about it.
And that's the whole point, says Col. Stephen Ressler, a civil engineering professor at West Point, who designed the software program being used in the contest.
The fact that this contest happens on the Web makes it much more accessible than most engineering contests, he says. ''There are a lot of kids who are able to get involved in the contest who were never able to get involved in a contest before.''
Winners get laptops and up to $15,000 for cash scholarships.
We've got some smart people on here, go for it.
Building bridges online
Jamie Jensen is the first to admit that his bridge won't exactly win the bridge beautiful contest. But it's sturdy and cheap -- and that's giving him an edge. Jensen, a senior at Kuna High School in Kuna, Idaho, is on one of 17,502 teams (and counting) to enter the West Point Bicentennial Engineering Design Contest, being conducted online.
Anyone can go to the Web site, download the bridge-building software and within minutes, come up with a bridge design that can be tested to make sure it can carry weight. To enter the actual contest, however, you have to be in kindergarten through 12th grade. (The contest ends Feb. 28.) The site immediately tells entrants how their bridge ranks, based on cost.
Winning designs must be both structurally sound and inexpensive to build.
Jensen says he entered the contest to fulfill a class requirement. But he says he had fun with the project. He doesn't know if he'll study engineering, but he's thinking about it.
And that's the whole point, says Col. Stephen Ressler, a civil engineering professor at West Point, who designed the software program being used in the contest.
The fact that this contest happens on the Web makes it much more accessible than most engineering contests, he says. ''There are a lot of kids who are able to get involved in the contest who were never able to get involved in a contest before.''
Winners get laptops and up to $15,000 for cash scholarships.
We've got some smart people on here, go for it.