Johnathan Halbgwachs of Lumby, British Columbia won the heavyweight title for the construction of a pasta bridge capable of supporting 209 kilograms. The Spaghetti Bridge Building Competition at Okanagan College includes secondary and post-secondary students in British Columbia.
Students armed with a hot glue gun and a fistful of uncooked spaghetti duked it out at the recent 28th Annual Okanagan College International Spaghetti Bridge Building Competition.
The event pits secondary and post-secondary school students against each other in a series of engineering battles. Competition categories include building the lightest possible bridge that can support one- and two-kilogram weights for five minutes, building a bridge capable of supporting the heaviest weight, and a surprise category in which the rules of the competition are revealed on the day of the contest.
Students can use up to one kilogram of any commercial pasta as construction material, with most selecting hot glue as the binder of choice. Hundreds of competitors, some from as far away as Hungary, participated in the event.
Johnathan Halbgwachs, a 14-year-old student from Charles Bloom Secondary School in Lumby, B.C., vanquished a slate of post-secondary combatants by winning the Heavyweight Competition title, building a 965-gram bridge that supported 209 kilograms.
“It’s pretty exciting,” says Okanagan College spokesperson Michelle Lowry, who witnessed the entire day’s events.
“Some of the bridges crumble as soon as the weights are placed on the hook underneath them. For others, you see a strand of spaghetti popping here and there and eventually the bridge explodes in a million pieces. Finally, you have the victors.”
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