SUNY engineering students blow up bridges

MIDDLETOWN — Led by engineering professor John Wolbeck, students destroyed the bridges they had so carefully built during the college’s annual bridge building competition on Wednesday, Dec. 14, at Harriman Hall in Middletown. The competition demonstrated which of them had constructed the most intelligent, stable, and strongest design. Constrained to a maximum of 35 popsicle sticks, the students and the audience of about 50 got to see which design worked better: tall, with fewer sticks, or low, with more sticks. Would an arch work better, or a straight line? Competitors fastened their bridges to a viselike scale, and weighed it down to see how much it could stand before it broke. The winning bridge withstood 106 pounds before exploding into bits, and was pyramid-shaped. It was constructed by Adam Volpe, a second-year civil engineering student.