Eighteen teams of middle and high school students from five states competed at the 2025 AASHTO Bridge Challenge event on May 13 in Hartford, CT – a national contest held in conjunction with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials 2025 Spring Meeting.
[Above photo by AASHTO]
Sponsored by Bentley Systems, HNTB, HDR, Housman and Associates, the Professional Engineers in California Government or PECG, and Microsoft, the AASHTO Bridge Challenge is designed to promote an interest in science, technology, engineering, and math or STEM disciplines among middle and high school students.
This competition – part of the AASHTO STEM Outreach Solutions technical service program – consists of five phases: Designing bridges via Model Smart and Bentley software; building a physical bridge model using glue and balsa wood from pre-packaged kits; developing a portfolio; conducting a presentation in front of a panel of judges; and destructive testing of the bridge models to calculate their ultimate strength-to-weight ratios.
During the one-day final round, those 18 student teams made formal presentations to a panel of judges in the morning and then submitted their balsa wood bridge models for destructive testing in the afternoon.
Judges awarded points to the teams for their presentations and the strength-to-weight ratio displayed by their bridge models, with the teams with the most cumulative points winning in their respective grade category.
The first, second, and third place winners in each grade level category were:
7th & 8th Grade Division
First Place: B.C.E Truss – Eric Wu, Brian Wu, Callie Cao – Meads Mill Middle School, Northville, MI
Second Place: TRUSS Tribe – Kesiena Ideh, Janae Jenkins, Juliana Hinkle – Chesapeake Math & IT Academy North Middle School, Laurel, MD
Third Place: It’s Just Geometry – Karen Saraia Porteles, Joao Victhor Andrade, Tsai John – Lyons Creek Middle School, Coconut Creek, FL
9th & 10th Grade Division
First Place: ARJ-itects – Jerry Niu, Richard Zhang, Ananyaa Rakkappan – Northville High School, Northville, MI
Second Place: Truss Worthy – Cade Thompson, Colton Rogers, Natalie Tran – Mantachie High School, Mantachie, MS
Third Place: Build a Bridge – Dorothy Adjetey, Oznur Yaren Yilmaz, Yasemin Vildan Yagar – Chesapeake Science Point High School, Hanover, MD
11th & 12th Grade Division
First Place: Iron Ore Overpasses – Emma Arbelius, Liam Nemetz, Holden Meyer – Negaunee High School, Negaunee, MI
Second Place: Designing Greater Bridges (DGB) – Leighann Briggs, Skylin Gause, Emma Daniels – East Union High School, Blue Springs, MS
Third Place: Team 5 – Noah Kaufman, Shaun Ruesch, David Vayser – Taft Charter High School, Woodland Hills, CA
Currently, 26 states participate in the AASHTO STEM Outreach Solutions program – and those states sponsor contests that send their respective winners to the national contest.
“The bridge challenge is a great way for state departments of transportation to get STEM-minded students interested and involved in the engineering fields related to infrastructure construction,” explained Julia Smith, training manager for the AASHTO STEM Outreach Solutions program.
“It is another way for state DOTs to encourage the potential engineers of tomorrow to consider careers in the transportation industry,” she said.
Top Stories
