Óbuda University’s International Team at RECCS 2016
2016-06-17 18:47
An international team comprised of Óbuda University students participated for the first time at RECCS - World Championship in Spaghetti Bridge Building. The team members were from different engineering fields and different countries: Kristóf Vágó from Hungary, Meruyert Rakymzhan from Kazakhstan, Ramiro Vargas and Lourdes Ruiz from Ecuador.
The team competed in the support category. The building of the support started with the creation of the design concept, in which advantage was taken of Kristóf’s previous experience in this type of competitions. As a goal, a structure capable of holding minimum 100kg was set. After the concept was approved, the building started, that lasted three whole working days.
The structure was built from cannelloni and spaghetti. The building steps involved inspecting, precise cuts, grinding and gluing of the pasta. The process of constructing a decent support from this material is meticulous and detail driven. Moreover, engineering skills, calculations and a rigorous follow-up of the building process is needed the whole time. The collaboration of the team members, managing schedules due to exam period were also a must for building a structure capable of holding more than a 100 times of its own weight.
As the result of the work, a support that weighted 790 grams was built. We named it Mac n’ cheese in reference to a popular American pasta dish. One of our main concerns was the possibility of failing to hold the aimed load because of its light weight. However, the structure performed very well on the contest! It not just held well over 100 kg of load (173.9), but got ahead of long time competitors from Iran, Bulgaria and Hungary.
We learned a number of lessons and made nice memories during the building and the competition itself. Teamwork, independent work, patience, working under pressure, were some of the skills exercised during the building process. Certainly the part of the whole thing was the fun also, that we always had opportunity to have. The fact that the team members were from different countries and backgrounds, created a unique synergy that was reflected in the final result.
Although it was our first competition, the result exceeded our expectations and made us think about the next year’s championship. We have great expectations such as to correct some technical and engineering mistakes, aim for a stronger design and beat our own record.
Lourdes Ruiz
PhD student, Óbuda University