Last year, Columbia's Steel Bridge Team finished second in the regional round and went on to compete in the National Competition at Texas A & M.

It isn't often that one can watch a steel bridge be constructed right before one's eyes, let alone in 26 minutes flat. But spectators will be able to see just that on Sat., April 7, as Columbia hosts the regional round of the 2001 Steel Bridge Competition.

Columbia engineering students and those from other schools will compete on College Walk to build a 23-foot steel bridge. Teams will be judged on constructability—the speed at which they can erect their bridge—as well as the economical use of materials, bridge aesthetics, weight (the lighter the better) and stiffness.

Strict rules must be followed and challenges met when teams erect a bridge in competition. Students are forced to traverse a blue carpeted "dead zone" in the center of the bridge space, representing water in which participants are penalized if they step. Teammates hold a tether that is attached by harness to one worker who leans in to secure steel members at the bridge's midpoint.

None of the individual steel members that are used to construct the bridge can exceed four feet in length or six inches in width and height, and once completed, the beams of each bridge must support 2,500 pounds of weight without deflecting (bending) more than two inches vertically.

The competition is exclusively a student effort; professors at each university serve as advisors, but students execute the design, structural analysis and fabrication. Among the schools building bridges in the event are Columbia, Princeton and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. The top two regional finishers advance to a national competition to be held at Clemson University in late May.

The event is sponsored by the American Institute of Steel Competition and the American Society of Civil Engineers and is open to all accredited civil engineering programs.