You're our kind of winner, Anthony Albidoni!

Funny thing about Sault College’s annual Bridge Building Contest.

The elementary school kids usually clean the clocks of the high school competitors.

That's partially explained by the tendency to judge, er, more loosely at the elementary level in subjective categories like functionality and originality.

But there's no arguing with the load-testing part of the contest, in which mass is gradually applied to the balsa bridges from above and judges record the weight at which structural failure occurs.

On Saturday, the strongest entry in the 12th Annual Bridge Building Contest at Station Mall was constructed by Anthony Albidoni of Ben R. McMullin Public School.

Anthony's bridge failed at 124.2 kilograms.

New load-carrying record

Not only was that better than any of the 162 elementary and 57 secondary school entries, but it established a new load-carrying record for the 12-year-old contest.

In fact, the contest also has an unofficial professional division, and the Ben R. McMullin pupil's entry even beat two of three entries there, twisting the trusses of a civil engineer and a civil technologist.

Only a professional engineer from Rowswell & Associates Engineers Ltd. built a better bridge.

(EDITOR'S NOTE - We want you to know that the guy in the photo above isn't Anthony Albidoni. It's actually Mark Edwards, who finished grade school a long time ago and is now a first-year civil engineering student at Sault College. Edwards was helping out with Saturday's contest.)

The year of the triangle

The 2003 contest was definitely the Year of the Triangle, says organizer Mary Ellen Tomie.

In previous years, some arch-shaped bridges have taken top prizes, but gluing and joint construction in such bridges must be virtually perfect and this year's arch designs didn't fare well, Tomie told SooToday.com.

Most of the winning entries were structurally solid triangle designs.

Predictably, most square designs without trussing (creating triangles within the design) buckled under low weight.

In good designs, failure of one structural member didn't immediately result in overall structural failure: the load would shift and the bridge remained intact until additional mass was added.

Careful craftsmanship also plays a big role in most winning entries, especially cutting and gluing, Tomie said.

Results from the 12th Annual Bridge Building Contest

Grades 5, 6 – 52 entries

1st - $100 Sadie Puddister Grand View Public School

2nd - $75 Jake Reed Grand View Public School

3rd - $50 Matthew Bolduc East View Public School

Grades 7, 8 – 109 entries 1st - $100 Anthony Albidone Ben R. McMullin Public School

2nd - $75 Alexa Smith Rosedale Public School

3rd - $50 Dominik Graf Ben R. McMullin Public School

Secondary schools – 57 entries

1st - $100 Josh Morley Korah C & VS

2nd - $75 Petri Karanen Korah

3rd - $50 Joe Turco Korah

$800 in prizes The number of entries in this year's contest, (218 overall) also set a record in each category.

Last year's contest attracted a total of 126 entries.

$800 in prizes will be awarded at a presentation the week of May 12.

Contest sponsors included Sault College Architectural, Civil, Construction Engineering Technician programs, Ontario Association of Architects, Professional Engineers of Ontario and the Rotary Club of Sault Ste. Marie North.