Midwest Conference Gearing Up!

The Midwest Regional Steel Bridge Competition is all set to fire on from March 9-10. Matt has decided to kill two birds with one stone by seeing some ole' high school amigos while in Minneapolis and heading down to Mankato for the competition that Saturday. Should be good to see what this very competitive conference comes up with. In the Midwest include the defending 2006 NSSBC Champs in the North Dakota State University Bison, perennial Canadian contender Lakehead University, the always fast assembly of Iowa State, and a slowly emerging University of North Dakota Steel Bridge Team. Others in the contest will include, Iowa, Minnesota State-Mankato, South Dakota State and the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. Good Stuff!

The Golden Gophers are on top of things, and have their bridge done ahead of schedule, and apparently in far better shape than typically anticipated. Looks like a solid "Spider Leg Warren", nice design, should show solid numbers with good connections. Note the deeper deck and lateral "diamond" truss alongside it, good for lateral rigidity, and helps reduce the amount of members put on the bridge. Only see maybe 2 or 3 lateral braces over the span, a few up top, and two at the piers of course, looks good!

























































Link to the 2006-2007 Golden Gopher effort:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~asce/bridge/

Some other Midwest Conference SBT's:
Minnesota State University-Mankato (2007 MW Regional Host)
http://krypton.mnsu.edu/~asce/

North Dakota State University
http://www.acm.ndsu.nodak.edu/~amersoci/STEEL%20BRIDGE.htm

South Dakota State University
http://learn.sdstate.edu/ASCE/Steel%20Bridge/STEELBRIDGE2006.htm

University of Wisconain-Platteville
http://www.uwplatt.edu/org/asce/

University of Iowa
http://css.engineering.uiowa.edu/~asce/steelnews.htm

University of North Dakota
http://www.und.nodak.edu/misc/sem/ce/cestudactivities.html

Lakehead University
http://www.luess.com/

Iowa State University
http://www.stuorg.iastate.edu/asce/steelbridge.htm

Still pluggin' away here, this is bridge has so many details it's hard to keep track of them all, but piece by piece it's starting to really turn into something special. Keep on Aggin' Chrome Ollie!