OCNews

You could have cut the tension with knife at the HMA Architects World Heavy Weight competition at Okanagan College’s 23rd Annual Spaghetti Bridge Contest. That is until the lights went out. The first bridge was just being weighed when a valley-wide power outage not only took out the lights but the load-bearing apparatus that tests the bridges’ stability.

A back-up generator was set up and when all the bridges were tested, students from the Budapest Polytechnic were declared champions again. Although they didn’t manage to break the all-time record set by one of their fellow students last year (257.33 kg), Miovacz Balazs and Varga Gyula Balazs came close with a bridge that weighed 972.5 grams that carried a load of 226.96 kg before breaking under the pressure and improved upon the third-place finish Miovacz had last year. They earned $1,500 for their efforts.

Vida Balazs, a student from Szecheayi Istvan University in Hungary, took second place with his bridge of 939.5 grams that withstood a 101.77 kg load before breaking. He won $1,000.

Stuart Kamstra, an Okanagan College student and the final participant in the heavy weight division, just missed out on third prize as his bridge did not withstand the required 10 kg load.

The event, held at the Kelowna Campus today, hosted a record number of competitors. More than 275 students were registered in the HMA Heavy Weight Competition, individual post-secondary and secondary school categories, as well as the Stantec team-building category. Eight elementary schools entered pedestrian bridges in the elementary demonstration category.

Each of the bridges had to meet certain criteria including weighing no more than 1,000 grams and having a span of at least one metre.

In the Stantec Post-Secondary and Secondary Team Building Categories, students were given two hours to build a bridge design that could hold a designated weight – two kg. for post-secondary and one kg. for secondary students – for five minutes. The team with the lightest bridge to withstand the load won. Okanagan Engineering Technology students Ken Tham, Travis Keegrstra and Kris Kerr took first place in the post-secondary category with a bridge that weighed 335.7 grams.

Second place was awarded to Marcus Fugeta, Aaron Hocking, Dallas Banman, and Greg Ringguth of Okanagan College for their bridge that weighed 353.6 grams. Third place went to Okanagan College students Lorant Marton, Kari Gronvold, Dean Schmidtke, and Damian Kusiak for their bridge of 369.5 grams.

In the Secondary Team Building Competition first place went to a team from W.L. Seaton Secondary: Shawn Crockett, Danny Grant, and John Bourcet, built a bridge that weighed 60.4 grams. A.L. Fortune students Amy Box, Matthew Davidson, and Vanessa Volpatti took second place with a 496.1 g bridge. Third place was awarded to a team from Eagle River Secondary that included Josee Reid and Kendall Zettergreen with a bridge that weighed 496.3 g.

In the individual competitions, post-secondary and secondary school students constructed a bridge at home and brought it to the competition to undergo the load test. The lightest bridges that withstood a two kg load for five minutes were declared the winners. In the secondary school category they are: First Place: Kai Lesack, KLO Middle School (228.3 g); Second Place: Pearl Pratley, Mount Boucherie Secondary (249.7 g); Third Place: Alex White, Eagle River Secondary (257.6 g).

In the post-secondary category the three Hungarian students took first and second place. First Place: Vida Balazs, Szecheayi Istvan University (92.1 g) Second Place: Milovacz Balazs and Gyula Balazs Varga, Budapest Polytechnic (94.6 g).