ORONO – The University of Maine was the host for the Northeast Regional Student Steel Bridge Competition on March 4 in conjunction with the Maine Engineering Promotion Council’s Engineering EXPO. Eight schools from the New England region participated in a competition requiring them to construct and load scale model steel bridges designed and fabricated by the student teams.

The University of Connecticut took first place in the event, and the University of Maine garnered second place honors. Northeastern University achieved third place. The University of Maine also took three of the six category awards given for the competition – aesthetics, construction speed and construction economy, which is determined based on construction speed and the number of people used to build the bridge.

As one of the top two teams in the region, the University of Maine will attend the National Steel Bridge Competition to be held May 26-27 at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

The members of the University of Maine steel bridge team are undergraduate and graduate students from the civil and environmental engineering department. They are advised by associate professor William Davids.

Students on the team are captain Jamie Morneau, Smithfield; Justin Desjarlais, Otisville, Mich.; Christopher Lyons, Fairfield; Lauren Swett, Old Town; Michael Swett, Old Town; Ben Jewell, Hampden; Kourtney Tourigny, Sheena Bitteti and Kisch Peters, all of York; Jesse Nash, Camden; Greg Lacadie, Bangor; and Kevin Merrill, Westbrook.

For information about the University of Maine team visit www.umeciv.maine.edu/asce/steelbridge2006.htm. For more information about the steel bridge competition, visit www.aisc.org/steelbridge.html.