WKU’s Steel Bridge Team has advanced to the Student Steel Bridge Competition finals after placing second in the regional competition in April.
The team also received the Robert Ridgeway Student Chapter Award as the most outstanding student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers for 2025.
The competition, held by the American Society of Civil Engineers and the American Institute of Steel Construction, is one of four senior projects that civil engineering majors can choose as a graduation requirement by the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, according to senior civil engineering major and team member, Caroline Cook.
The Steel Bridge Team previously traveled to the University of Notre Dame to compete at the regional competition against seven other schools.
For each component the bridges were judged on at the regional competition, WKU finished:
- 2nd overall
- 1st in lightness
- 1st in construction speed
- 1st in stiffness, the measure of the strength of the bridge
- 2nd in aesthetics
- 2nd in efficiency
- 3rd in cost estimation
Members of the Steel Bridge Team include co-captains Nate Bruner and Jack Barton, Compliance leads Caroline Cook and Kennedy Sizemore, Safety and Office Associates Scott Robert and Cole Hollinsworth, Design Lead Morgan Cambron, and the construction team Carson Millay, Clayton Goff, Gabe Williner, and Konor Mason.
Cook said the competition’s goal is to build the best mock steel bridge based on the list of requirements provided by AISC.
“There are a lot of specifications and things that you have to go through to figure out how you’re going to build this bridge, so that’s essentially what we do for a whole year,” Cook said.
According to Cook, each team must develop an architectural design and complete its own construction of the steel bridge.
“The first semester is spent going through the rule book and designing the bridge,” Cook said. “In the spring semester, the big focus is cutting the steel members, welding the steel members and building the bridge.”
During the competition, members must recreate their design as quickly as possible with minimal penalties, like dropping a bolt or steel member. The winner is decided based on construction time and the estimated cost to build the bridge.
The 20-foot bridge must meet specific criteria, and the team will receive a deduction from their score for every error found by the judges.
Each aspect of the construction of the bridge equals a dollar amount that contributes to the team’s score. Once the bridge is completed, 2500 pounds are placed on top of the bridge to determine how much it bends.
“You’re competing against schools anywhere from New York to California, so I think it’s going to be very interesting to see their approaches to how they do things because they might be taught different processes than we are,” Cook said.
Shane Palmquist, an engineering professor at WKU, acts as the adviser of the Steel Bridge Team.
“Trying to do well at nationals is very challenging because there are a lot of big schools that put a lot of time and resources into it,” Palmquist said.
Although the national competition is highly competitive, Palmquist said he hopes to see the team in the top 25.
“The fact that our students are building and constructing the bridge themselves, they’re welding the bridge and learning how to weld,” Palmquist said. “Other schools will have a fabricator, where these students are doing everything themselves.”
WKU’s Steel Bridge Team will compete at the SSBC 2025 national finals at Iowa State University from May 30-31.
