Galen Reed in bridge building competition

Galen Reed, a 2008 graduate of Wrangell High School participated in the National Student Steel Bridge Competition May 25-26 at Clemson University. Reed is a member of Northwestern University’s steel bridge team.

Reed’s team took a number of top spots in the competition, including a No. 9 ranking in display.

“It was a great competition,” Reed said. “Building bridges is not an easy thing to do. It’s pretty complex.”

More than 500 students from 47 universities participated in the competition – and had design bridges that are more than 22 feet long and can hold 2,500 pounds, span an imaginary river, and be designed to minimize the amount of steel and the time to assemble the bridge.

Reed’s team from Northwestern University, which placed in its regional competition to qualify for the national event, began the competition on Friday, May 25.

Up to six members of each team built the bridges one piece at a time and were timed to see how efficiently they could assemble their bridges. Other team members brought the pieces to them one at a time from a separate staging area.

Reed said he was happy with his team’s effort.

“We all worked together very well as a team,” he said. “It was really neat to see all these students from the other schools working so hard, too.”

Clemson professor Scott Schiff said it’s important that the pieces are delivered in the order they are needed because no piece can be left on the floor.

“It’s not just designing a bridge that can hold 2,500 pounds – that’s easy,” Schiff said in an email. “It’s designing a bridge that’s easy to build, meets all of the design requirements and construction rules and can hold 2,500 pounds.”

Teams were scored based on how long it took to assemble their bridges multiplied by the number of team members building them, how much their bridges weigh to measure how much material they use, how little their bridges deflect when weight is added, and if they can hold the 2,500 pounds. Aesthetics, where Reed’s team excelled, also affected the final scores.

“We had the lightest bridge also in raw weight, before we began building,” Reed added. “And it was a very beautiful bridge.”

Reed will graduate from Northwestern with a degree in Mechanical Engineering on June 16. He plans to live in Petersburg and work for the U.S. Forest Service.