“Spaghetti Bridges” resisted to more than one hundred kilograms

The Faculty of Engineering hosted the 9th edition of “Spaghetti Bridges” contest, where participants could show the resistance and aesthetics of their works in front of dozens of students.

One hundred kilograms and 80 grams is the new record of “Spaghetti Bridges” contest which took place last week, on 26th of November, at Beira Interior University (UBI). The winner was Marco Oliveira, from Covilhã, student of Electromechanical Engineering, who also won the contest in 2006 and 2008. Besides the “Resistance” category, the student also won the category of “Aesthetics”.

In this 9th edition of the contest, held in 8.1 amphitheatre of Engineering building, 17 were the bridges that participated, in which there were included for the first time, two high school projects: João Franco high school, from Fundão, and EB 2/3 de Manteigas.

In the new category introduced this year on the contest, building spaghetti towers, the tallest tower made of spaghetti for up to one hundred grams, belonged to the group of Paula, Virginie e Fábio, students of Electrotechnical Engineering, which built a tower of two meters and 73 centimeters.

The main purpose of this competition is to encourage the creative abilities of students in the project of a bridge performed with spaghetti and glue. This work aims to increase students' interest in creativity / research and for finding ingenious solutions to the problems posed. There are two categories of competition: "Resistance" and "Aesthetics." The aim of the competing category bridges “Resistance” is building a bridge that supports the largest load possible. The aim of the bridges competitors to the category of “Aesthetics” is to build a bridge that complies with this regulation and is architecturally pleasing.

“Spaghetti Bridges” contest, 9th edition, was held during “Engineering 2009” Conference, which was hosted by the Faculty of Engineering, UBI, between 25 and 27 of November.