Eighteen teams of middle and high school students from eight states competed at the 2026 AASHTO Bridge Challenge event on April 13 in Savannah, GA – a national contest held in conjunction with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials 2026 Spring Meeting.
[Above photo by AASHTO]
Sponsored by Bentley Systems, HNTB, HDR, AECOM, 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: Meads Mill Truss Builders – Callie Cao, Brian Wu, and Joshua Wu – Meads Mill Middle School, Northville, MI.
Second Place: The Dream Builders – Annaleigh Hubbard, Anorah Turner, and Ceagann Wilson – Mantachie Middle School, Mantachie, MS.
Third Place: Vertical Horizon(s) – Katelyn Astarita, Penny Gomes, and Ariana Pulgar Ramirez – Lyons Creek Middle School, Coconut Creek, FL.
9th & 10th Grade Division
First Place: Northville Span Works – Avery Fry, Sophia Jiang, and Julia Wei – Northville High School, Northville, MI.
Second Place: Mission Archers – Gabriella Mbakop, Tanitoluwa Ojifinni, and Wania Shabaz – Eleanor Roosevelt High School, Greenbelt, MD.
Third Place: The Archers – Auston Pickens, Bella Rakestraw, Anastasia Swann – East Union Attendance Center, Blue Springs, MS.
11th & 12th Grade Division
First Place: Arch Enemies – Riese Faust, Lexi Serna, and Emiliano Venegas – Taft Charter High School-Gifted Stream Magnet, Woodland Hills, CA.
Second Place: Shear Luck – Vanessa Ambrin, Daniela Iraheta, and Ashley Rodriguez – Rialto High School, Rialto, CA.
Third Place: Triple A Construction – Alyson Miller, Alek Novesky, and Aron Novesky – LISD TECH Center, Adrian, MI.
Currently, 21 states participate in the AASHTO STEM Outreach Solutions program and those states sponsor regional bridge building contests that send their respective winners to the national competition.
Russell McMurry – commissioner of the Georgia Department of Transportation and AASHTO’s 2025-2026 president – stopped by to urge the students competing in the bridge challenge event to consider careers in the engineering field.
“What you are doing here today is near and dear to me,” he said. “I really enjoyed this kind of hands-on work as a kid and that is how I found my way into engineering in college. But all of you are way ahead of where I was; you are studying now what I learned in college. That is why it is a real honor to have you here with us.”
McMurry encouraged the gathered students to “really think about engineering as a future career, because we really need engineers of many types. Because engineers are the ones figuring out how to make things better for our communities and to improve people’s lives.”
Kim Benson, the teacher and team sponsor for third-place finisher Triple A Construction in the 11th and 12th grade division, explained to the AASHTO Journal that these types of hands-on contests – combined with field trips to visit actual bridge structures – help “connect the dots” between students and careers in many types of STEM fields, including engineering.
“Many of the kids I’ve taught have never built anything before, so this type of competition generates a lot of excitement,” she said. “It generates a lot of energy and engagement between the students and the engineering work they are doing.”
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