Students at the University of Brighton have tested their design and engineering skills by building bridges entirely from dried pasta.
Using just 1kg of pasta and some glue each bridge has to support a predicted weight over a 1m gap for at least 20 seconds. This years winning bridge held an impressive 48kg, although someway behind the all-time University record of 86kg.
The 2011 winning team
The annual ‘pasta bridge challenge’ forms part of the engineering degree course at the University of Brighton. Ian Watts, senior lecturer at the School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematics, who heads the challenge said,
" Using pasta instead of standard construction materials means students have to think very carefully about their designs The pasta bridge challenge helps students develop a range of skills, such as planning and working within limits, co-operation and communication. They also develop mechanical design skills, and an appreciation of stresses, structures and key concepts such as finite element analysis and Bow’s notation.”
In addition to building the bridge students have to produce a 2000 word formal written report covering the design process, research, and modeling techniques used to predict the failure load.
The students’ work is assessed on appropriateness of the design, accuracy of the predicted failure load, and quality of construction, effectiveness of group and project management, individual contribution to the project and the quality of the final report.
Jake Morris and Richard Percival-Alwynn two of the students who took part in the challenge said,
" It was a really fun exercise but challenging too. It really helped us understand and apply some key engineering concepts.”
