DCEB 2nd Year students Ng Yu Lun and Hee Zhan Zhykn won the 1st Prize in the 2015 NTU Bridge Design Competition organised by NTU Civil and Environmental Club and sponsored by Building and Construction Authority (BCA). Their model, “Ditto”, weighed 15.66 grams and sustained a load of 35.06 kg. This worked out to an efficiency ratio of 2238 and helped them clinch the $500 top prize. Two other teams comprising Ling Wei Jie/Xu Peisong and Rennie Toh Qian Yu/Stephanie Lim Wei Ling won the 2nd and 3rd prizes respectively.
A total of 29 teams from five polytechnics and BCA Academy participated in the competition. The 11 teams from SP/DCEB took the top 11 positions, except for position 10. The objective of this competition was to allow students to hone their skills as well as to apply their knowledge of structural integrity of trusses, which they learnt in the “Structural Analysis” module.
Each team was supplied with 20 Balsa wood sticks and adhesive to fabricate the bridge models according to a set of guidelines. Fabrication of bridge models was done on the first day (14 March) within 5.5 hours. On day two (15 March), all teams presented their designs to a panel of judges followed by load testing. Each bridge model was loaded gradually till it failed. The efficiency ratio is computed by using the load it could sustain divided by the weight of the model. The physical and aesthetic aspects of the models were also assessed by the judges.
