Weight under the bridge

With a limited supply of wood and glue, civil engineering students in the UAE built complex bridges that supported substantial weights at the recent Wooden Bridge Competition hosted by the American University in Dubai (AUD). More than 100 students from AUD, the American University of Sharjah (AUS) and UAE University participated.

The event aimed to demonstrate the importance of bridges in a city's infrastructure in remedying traffic problems.

An AUD team made up of civil engineering students Flavio Faustini, Mohammad Al Hassan and Bassilio Dahlan won the competition. They received a plaque presented by the Civil Engineering Students Association (CESA) as well as a full civil engineering tool set. Their bridge bore more than 600kg.

Students had to build a truss bridge with a single loading point. (A truss bridge is a bridge made up of connected elements.) A "guessing booth" had also been set up where students were urged to guess the maximum loading apparatus with points being awarded for the correct answer.

AUD civil engineering student Maxim Petrenko's guess was the closest and earned him a CESA plaque for displaying the "finest critical engineering judgment" among his peers.

"These kinds of competitions are opportunities to unify the universities, meet different people, discuss ideas and talk to professors from other universities. And that's good for the university and for me as well," said AUD civil engineering student Mouin Al Masoudi.

Al Masoudi and his team spent three days designing their project using software to analyse bridge models. They took five days to build the bridge.

Al Masoudi said he entered the contest to "have fun and apply the theoretical knowledge that I gained in the classroom to real life".

He added: "It's not good enough to just read the book and write notes."

AUS had a strong presence at the event with teams from the civil engineering and architecture departments taking part. Al Nahder Al Sayed Ali, a civil engineering student and president of the AUS Society of Civil Engineering Students, spoke to Notes ahead of the event.

"For civil engineering students, this is a real application of what we learnt in the curriculum. It gave us a good idea about the challenges faced when building a bridge and the competition was also highly regulated," he said.

Ali said many teams had not tested their bridges extensively, adding it would be exciting to see who won.

"Hopefully we will do this at our university next year and make it an annual event."

The competition was held under the supervision of Dr Edgar Small, assistant professor of civil engineering at AUD. The aim, he said, was to provide a unique social experience for both students and instructors to interact, highlight the means of translating theoretical knowledge into practical application, develop a sense of teamwork among students and help them maintain a sense of economy when using materials.

"In any sort of undergraduate programme, you're teaching students theory from books about the concept, but they need to be able to put their hands on the material. They need to see it and need to be able to do it," Small said.

He said the demand for civil engineers has always been high in the UAE. "Based on last year's numbers, all our students had multiple offers when they graduated."

Rany Metry, AUD civil engineering student and CESA president, reflected on the significance of organising the event. "The annual Wooden Bridge Competition is a great opportunity for engineers-in-the-making to shine outside the confines of their lecture hall. In fact, the classroom is in no way big enough an arena for the challenges engineering students should face."

He added that bridges are vital to the economy and despite their importance in the civil engineering industry, at times they are overshadowed by towers and skyscrapers.

Fatima Shariatmadari builds her bridge in the annual Wooden Bridge Competition held at the American University in Dubai last week.

Engineering students from several universities took part in the annual wood bridge competition held at AUD.

PHOTOS:FRANCOIS NEL/Gulf News