Contact: Patti Klein Lerner,
(818) 677-2130

CSUN Bridge Builders Brave Storm
to Compete in National Contest

It was the first time a CSUN team has ever made it to the finals of the National Steel Bridges Competition. About 250 students from 43 universities across the United States competed in the contest on May 20-21 at Texas A&M University.

"The faculty and the students are very proud of their achievement in reaching the nationals and we're proud of them placing 19th in the nation," said Stephen Gadomski, chairman of the Department of Civil and Manufacturing Engineering at CSUN.

CSUN's team earned the right to compete on the national level by placing second against 16 teams in the southwest regional competition in Tucson in early April.

Another Cal State school, California State University at Chico, won the national competition.

In both the national and regional contests, tool-wielding students raced to build the fastest 22-foot-long steel bridge over a 14-foot wide imaginary river using no single piece larger than 4 feet, Gadomski said. The students were also judged on how much their bridge moved when loaded with 2,500 pounds of steel and how much it weighed proportionate to its movement when loaded.

The CSUN team placed 11th in economy, a measure of construction time combined with bridge weight, Gadomski said.

On Friday, May 19, the CSUN students and two faculty members flew with seven boxes of bridge-building components to Houston, Texas. They arrived amidst a storm that dropped 19 inches of rain on the greater Houston area, causing some suburbs to be declared federal disaster areas, Gadomski said.

"We were the last plane to land at Houston International Airport that evening before they closed the airport. We just made it in by the skin of our teeth," Gadomski said. "It took us four hours to get out of the airport."

Then the group had to drive 95 miles to College Station, where Texas A & M University is located.

"The rain didn't stop until we arrived at the hotel. I was ready to pull off the road several times. I just couldn't see," Gadomski said. "But our placing 19th made Friday night's episode seem like a dream. I'm very happy about it and very proud of them, too. All the faculty are."

The CSUN team built its bridge in 6 minutes and 18 seconds but three dropped bolts resulted in penalties that lowered the team's ranking, said Gadomski. "They were nervous. We did it faster in the parking lot."

Members of the CSUN team are James B. Bobo of Canyon Country; Raymond P. Carroll of Sunland; Scott R. Giannini of Sylmar; Jerry M. Lebeck of North Hills; Norman D. Raymundo of Valencia, and Victoria A. Stone of Northridge. All are student members of the American Society of Civil Engineers, which co-sponsored the contest along with the American Institute of Steel Construction.

For more information, call Gadomski at (818) 677-2166.