For the last year, MSU’s steel bridge team, Spartan Spanners, has been the designing, constructing and perfecting a large steel bridge that could hold as much as 2600 pounds for a competition as part of the annual American Society of Civil Engineers conference.
MSU played host to the annual conference this year, which allows students to compete in competitions like steel bridge building and concrete canoe racing – a competition canceled this year because of the weather.
The steel bridge competition gives students the opportunity to display their skills in not only teamwork, but steel fabrication and design as well.
This year’s conference brought together eight universities to compete. The steel bridge building competition took place on April 8 at Breslin Center.
Civil engineering junior Jake Maise, who was one of the steel bridge team captains and also participated in the competition, said the team spent the year training for the event.
“We spent all of the fall semester designing and this semester in the metal shop and putting it all together,” Maise said.
The Spartan Spanners consists of 15 members and three captains. Every member of the team was involved in helping to put the steel bridge together in some way.
Although the captains were the ones who participated in the actual steel bridge competition, members of the team came to support them and watched from the sidelines.
Frank Hatfield, the team’s longtime coach, said the team does not get any class credit for the competition and spent its leisure time working on the steel bridge.
“They’re extremely enthusiastic and dedicated,” Hatfield said. “They will show their dedication, they will show a good bridge, good build time and show what they have been learning.
Patrick Schwyn, civil engineering junior and project coordinator, said the theme for this year was MSU and both teams are experienced with the competition.
“The steel bridge team is currently on a three year streak of winning regionals and going to nationals so we got a lot of experienced guys and girls on that team,” Schwyn said.
The team also worked on projects aside from the bridge and canoe.
“We worked not only on the canoe or bridge, but there’s posters and papers that go along with it,” Schwyn said.
Hatfield said he believes when the team graduates, society will be in good hands.
“These people will go out and graduate and be building things that serve the public,” Hatfield said. “They’ve got the technical skills of engineers but they’ve got a social conscientiousness that’s outstanding.”
