The Spartan Spanners are a group made up of mostly civil engineering students, but open to anyone, who design a steel bridge to compete in the annual Student Steel Bridge Competition. The event is sponsored by the American Institute of Steel Construction and the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Competition ranking is based on time needed to construct the bridge over an imaginary river, appearance, stiffness, lightness, the number of students needed to construct and a technical poster explaining the bridge. Bridges must span 20 feet using parts no longer than three feet and must support 2,500 pounds of weight. 

Competing teams must comply with governing dimensions and construction procedures, which change radically each year, said Frank Hatfield, a retired MSU professor of civil engineering and the Spartan Spanners coach since 1987.

Hatfield believes the success of the team to be a testament to the improvements in engineering at MSU.

“Winning the regional competition and the excellent national ranking enhance the reputation and prestige of engineering at MSU,” said Hatfield.

The team spends months planning for the competition in the fall, and then use the winter to cut, weld and assemble the bridge, according to civil engineering junior Colleen Bianco. A lot of hands-on skills were learned during the process. Bianco said one of her favorite parts of Spartan Spanners is she can point to specific pieces of the bridge she built.

Civil engineering senior and team captain Eric Kamps said this year’s team was successful due to the cooperation, effort and hard work displayed throughout the project.

From the regional competition in April to the national competition in May, the team improved its score by about 25 percent and was able to get the weight of its bridge down 135 pounds from last year’s national competition, according to civil engineering junior Jake Maise.

“What made our project unique this year was that our bridge wasn't designed to just excel in one part of the problem statement given, but it was designed to embody every part of it as well as we could,” said Kamps.

Next year’s national competition will be hosted by Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, May 27 and 28.

“We experienced a mixture of pride and a bit of disappointment when the results were announced. We felt proud because the team performed significantly better than last year, however placing 12th slightly disappointed us because our aim was to be in the top ten,” said civil engineering sophomore Lucas Manhice. “We nonetheless learned a lot from this experience and will be incorporating the insights we gained into the new bridge design.”