AASHTO Journal - Interest Grows in WVDOT Bridge Design & Build Contest

The annual West Virginia Bridge Design & Build Competition – sponsored by the West Virginia Department of Transportation, the West Virginia University Institute of Technology or WVU Tech, and West Virginia Department of Education – witnessed a significant surge in engagement this year, with 15 of the 29 schools participating in the contest brand new to the event.

[Above photo by WVDOT]

Hosted at WVU Tech’s Beckley campus on April 18, the contest pitted teams of middle- and high-school students from 18 different counties across the state in two distinct challenges.

In the first, participating students used a special software program to solve problems in real time, aiming to build the most cost-effective bridge design that could successfully withstand a load test. In the second one, student teams took previously-built Balsa wood bridge models and subjected them destructive testing – withstanding increasing amounts of weight, applied in the form of sand, until they broke.

[Editor’s note: The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials hosts a similar program on a national level, the AASHTO Bridge Challenge, every year at its Spring Meeting.]

Top performers in both categories can win between $100 and $500, with every finalist guaranteed a prize, WVDOT noted.

“You never know when you’re making a real impact, but former participants have reached out telling us how [this contest] changed the course of their life,” noted Ryland Musick, WVDOT District 10 Engineer and a judge at the event, in a statement.

“These kids are coming back year after year and participating,” added Hussein Elkhansa, WVDOT’s chief technology officer. “Some students begin competing in middle school and come back every year through high school.”

He said the increase in participation this year resulted from recruitment efforts by county engineers across the state, as well as presentations given by students at the West Virginia Science Teachers Association conference to raise awareness of the competition.

That outreach helped attract 15 new schools across six new counties to the program; boosting the number of participants to 34 students this year.