HELENA — Helena Area High School students felt the pressure through a competition that bridges the gaps between design and functionality.
“We are not actually building a bridge with this competition; we are solving an engineering problem,” Russ Lay, a local bridge engineer, said.
Now in its fifth year, the annual balsa bridge building competition is a partnership with Morrison Maierle and physics and tech math classes.
“It is so fun to see my students get excited about something like this,” Helena High Tech Math teacher Jonathan Driggers said.
Over the past couple of weeks, students designed and built their bridges from kits provided by the engineering team.
Grace Dobler, a Helena High junior, said, “I really enjoyed the building part of it because it is different from anything else we do in other classes.”
That labor of love all culminated under the stress press, literally crushing the competition.
“It was really exciting because we worked hard on these bridges, and it was cool to see our final product get crushed,” Amos Crowley, a senior at Helena High said.
This year had the biggest turnout yet, with over 80 students from just one of the high schools.
Helena High junior, Adeline Olson, said, “It seemed really fun, and they do a lot of projects which I really enjoy doing.”
Winners are determined by measurement, dividing the weight of their bridge by how much weight it can bear with the stress press, with the best bridges bringing home some money.
It’s about more than what is learned in the classroom, though. Driggers said, “It’s a great event because it is hands-on, so some of the students who do not shine academically will often shine with that hands-on experience.”
