“The girl team”…or this is how two technical manager student girls do the building …

In 2016, the team of University of Szeged has already participated for the third time on RECCS - World Championship in Spaghetti Bridge Building. For sure we can claim to be the best team in Szeged, at least when it comes to Spaghetti Bridge building.

At our University, spaghetti bridge building had no traditions; therefore in the beginning we faced great challenges: establishing the mechanical model, carrying out the engineering calculations, creating the engineering drawings of the constructions, designing and fabricating templates for manufacturing bridge elements, selecting the appropriate glue and pasta, etc. 

 

The idea of participating on spaghetti bridge contests arose in 2014, during a physics lecture. The same year, Evelyn organized a team, which participated on RECCS 2014 with a support. The result they achieved placed the bar very high for them, since this their first “attempt” held 255.4 kg!

Nikolett joined the team in October same year, for the competition TörDElő, organized by University of Debrecen. We decided to team up, and on the forthcoming competitions we entered as one team. This decision proved to be correct; we both are determined, precise, enduring, and we are able to inspire each other.

 

The list of spaghetti bridge competitions is broadened by the university home competition of SZTE, which was this year organized for the second time. Beyond taking part in the competition, we took its organization tasks as well. This proved also be a good decision, since we were able to show our organizational qualities too.

 

In the first years, we competed in the support category with triangular shaped structures. After we achieved the exceptional 358.7 kg, we thought we should try out ourselves in bridge category too. This was when we switched to arch shape, and with such structures we set our personal record to 383.6 kg.

 

This February, on SZTE home competition our bridge held only 190.8 kg, since the wooden loading element of the bridge tore into two at that load. This was a great disappointment for us, however the spaghetti structure itself remained intact. Since we didn't want to lay it to waste, we decided to repair the bridge. After 97 days we entered with this repaired bridge to RECCS 2016, and we bested our record with 398.9 kg!

Since we were not sure that after three months this bridge will produce result we will be satisfied with, we decided to enter into the support category also. We named the support Tiszavirág 4” (that is: Mayfly 4). 

During the building, we had a number of obstacles to cope width, but we knew we have to be enduring. We started the work with the selecting of the “tiny” parts of the support. We did this in multiple steps and it took two days. This was followed by the grinding procedure, where we worked on the grinding machine in turns, and sometimes even in the same time.

 

We had to split our working time between building our new support and the reparation of the old bridge. The reparation included cutting off the unusable parts, grinding and re-gluing. 

The old structure was already standing on its foots on Saturday, four days before the competition, while the building of the new structure begun only on Monday. After three whole days of hard work, the support was ready also. We took care that the reparation of the old structure was not done at the expense of the new, which we think was accomplished. Both structures won fourth place on the competition!

Given that we are graduating in January, it is possible that we will not enter next year's world championship. We wished to reach results above 400 kg, or to reach third or better placement, but basically we are satisfied, because we are richer with several valuable observations, and unforgettable experiences.

 

We are proud that among the usually boy-made teams as the only (technical manager) girl team we did well, realized our aims and ideas, and managed to take part in a high level and interesting engineering student competition!

We think that these competitions and successes added positive qualities to our personality, improved our stamina, and made us believe, that nothing is impossible.

 

Authors:

Evelyn Kis and Nikolett Förgeteg 

Faculty of Engineering@University of Szeged (SZTE)