Students from 8 school districts compete at Saint Vincent’s Pasta Bridge Engineering Competition

Patrick Varine
Monday, March 7, 2022 7:38 p.m. | Monday, March 7, 2022 7:38 p.m.

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Patrick Varine | Tribune-Review

Nineteen teams from eight school districts participated at the 15th annual Pasta Bridge Engineering Compet­ition, held Monday at Saint Vincent College.

Patrick Varine | Tribune-Review

These weights test the design strength of student projects at the 15th annual Pasta Bridge Engineering Competition, held Monday at Saint Vincent College.

Patrick Varine | Tribune-Review

Greensburg Salem students Emily Campbell, 17, and Patrick Miller, 17, make some last-minute adjustments to their pasta bridge display at the 15th annual Pasta Bridge Engineering Competition, held Monday at Saint Vincent College.

Patrick Varine | Tribune-Review

Members of a Penn-Trafford High School team pose in front of their bridge at the 15th annual Pasta Bridge Engineering Competition, held Monday at Saint Vincent College. From the left are Thomas Kopasko, Ryan Litzinger, Evan Wettling, Ashley Broadwater, Nicholas McCracken and Evan Payne.

Nineteen teams of students from eight school districts in Western Pennsylvania were hoping to keep things “al dente” Monday night at the 15th annual Pasta Bridge Engineering Competition, held at Saint Vincent College.

That wasn’t the case for one of three Norwin students teams.

“We had some issues with the pasta on one of the bridges,” said Norwin science teacher and team adviser Matthew Anticole, who has been bringing teams to the competition since its early days at Carbone’s Restaurant in Crabtree. “It’s great to watch a group of smart kids with all of these great ideas working together to create a functional design.

Norwin’s other two teams, however, went on to take the top two spots in the competition, including a first-place team of Logan Clair, Reese Pulkownik, Joe Secosky, Michael Siefert and Joe Zaradzki, who set a new competition record with a bridge that held 123.9 pounds of weight.

Made of uncooked pasta and hot glue, the bridges were tested in front of an audience at the Fred M. Rogers Center at Saint Vincent.

Hempfield science teacher Tom Harden said his three student teams have been working on their pasta bridges since the end of January. One of those teams took home third place with a bridge that held 27.78 pounds of weight.

“I like to try and do a lot of enrichment for kids who are interested in engineering,” Harden said.

Some teams brought things right down to the wire. The Penn-Trafford student team of Eli and Gigi Emahizer spent a total of 32 hours working on their pasta bridge — including about 24 of them just over the weekend.

“This weekend, I ended up revising my whole idea,” Gigi said. “The big challenge is trying to stay consistent as possible, doing all the math and keeping up the drive to get it done.”

Greensburg Salem science teacher Cheryl Harper said she enjoys watching her students’ ideas develop into reality.

“I think it’s authentic learning, and I love to watch them work through the problems,” she said.