The Berkeley Steel Bridge Team's entry, BEARzilla, received 1st place overall, and in all 6 subcategories, at the AISC regional competition held at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Berkeley's sweeping victory qualifies them to advance to the national competition in May.
The team's civil and mechanical engineers work together to design, machine, weld, and assemble a 22-foot-long bridge that is required to be loaded to 2500 pounds with minimal deflection.
The competition is based on 3 main categories: weight, assembly time, and deflection under load.
BEARzilla is designed to be optimized in these 3 categories while still being able to be fabricated entirely by students—when they are not doing classwork.
The team faced a particularly challenging problem statement that featured skewed bridge footings, or piers, that introduced large torsional forces. Through multiple design iterations in the fall semester and fabrication in the spring semester, the Berkeley team was able to create this 1st place bridge!
On to Nationals!
Go Bears!
Steel Bridge 2019 team members at awards ceremony.