Physics Balsa Bridge Building Contest

Every year the Physics 12 and 11 students of Notre Dame are involved in a bridge building contest. The main goal of the contest is to make the strongest bridge out of only balsa wood and glue. The bridges are also judged and voted by the students as most unusual, most attractive and workmanship. So far, the current record for the strongest bridge is 209.4 kg (465 lbs.) that was made by Matt Sullivan in 2000. This year, the contest is being held on May 6, 2008. This is also the first time I'm going to be a part of this contest. So I hope you wish Lauren (my partner) and I good luck!!!

For more information about the bridge building contest and for a picture of Matt Sullivan's bridge, check out this website: http://www.balsabridge.com/

For pictures of the bridges last year (including photos of them being destroyed), visit this website: www.myndrs.com/bridge07/index.html

Here is a pretty cool link that I found on the balsa bridge website: www.hevanet.com/bridgink/

The contest has been going on for many years, and throughout those years ND has had many sponsors, such as BCIT, UBC, SFU, Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC. For the logos of these sponsors click here.

Vancouver has many interesting bridges - here's my favourite: the Skytrain Bridge