Cal Poly Steel Bridge

The team is back from nationals in Texas and almost caught up on sleep.


The National Breakdown– Lakehead took first by placing in most all of the categories. We took a close 6th place; finishing 5th in Construction Speed, 4th in Lightness, 8th in Display, 16th in Stiffness, 7th in Economy, 5th in Efficiency and only $610,650 out of 1st.


Check back in the coming weeks for photos of the bridge and nationals


The team would like to thank everyone that has supported us in efforts this year.

The team is all ready for nationals. The bridge left on a truck today on its way to Texas and the team will follow Wednesday by plane. Everyone on the team is looking forward to our 4am drive to LA to catch our flight to Texas.

Thursday April 21, at 11 am Steel Bridge will be holding an info session for next years captains.  Come and learn about everything that goes into the design and fabrication on the bridge.  Interviews will be scheduled for the following  week.

This past weekend we competed at PSWC in Los Angeles and we won first place overall.  We also got first in construction speed and construction economy.  We also received third place for lightness, stiffness, and structural economy.  It’s great to know that all our hard work paid off for us.  Next we have to make a few alterations and then determine what color we want to paint the bridge.  After that we will be heading to Texas A & M to compete in the national competition.  Hopefully we reach our goal of placing top 5.

With the competition less than a week away, we have completed the bridge and printed the poster. The construction team has been decided and practice is going well with only minor scrapes.

The bridge is nearly complete with only a few pieces left in the jigs awaiting welding.  The fabrication progress was delayed a few days as multiple connections had to be cut out, re-milled and welded back into place.  Next week will be filled with long days of adjusting member connections and completing the laterals.  We have also ordered dial gauges and holders in preparation for load testing in the coming weeks.


On the graphic side of things, we have our T-shirt design and will printing next week.  Also, our poster is almost complete with only minor tweaks remaining.

When: Saturday February 12th at 11am
Where: In front of the Aero Hanger
Clothing: Comfortable clothing and running shoes
Lunch: Provided for those trying out

Come out and learn more about the bridge and everything that goes in to making it. It is also an opportunity to get more information about joining next year’s bridge team and possibly doing Steel Bridge as your Senior Project.

Related Information:

After regionals in March, we will be holding captain interviews for next year’s team. We will announce when and where they will be held in the near future. We highly encourage you to come to construction tryouts if you are interested in becoming a captain.

Come to the SCE meeting on Wednesday, January 26th for a Steel Bridge Update!

We’ll we have been working 4 to 5 days a week for the past two months machining connections, notching tubing, cutting pipes, and designing a jig for fabrication.  I’m happy to say that all our hard work has paid off with our connections and we only have a couple more days.  Our jigs turned out amazing and are really going to make welding everything together much easier.  We welded up two sections last week to make sure everything is going to work and it worked out perfectly.  We are all really excited that our work is paying off and can’t wait to see the final product.

We finally have the website working again.  So lots of things have been going on for  our team over the past month.  We finished the design the first week of October and well be picking up the steel next week with fabrication to start after that.  We have been working on machining some new connections and are looking to test them next week.  We are way ahead of schedule compared to previous years so hopefully we can keep that momentum going.

Lucas Hoffmann

All four senior captains are finally all back in San Luis and have begun coming up with some design ideas for this years bridge.  Were starting off simple by analyzing different undertruss designs and then will move on to the decking.  The four of us are working hard and coming up with some good designs.