E-Week Truss Bustin' Competition

Contributed by John Hill, Truss Bustin' Competition Co-Coordinator

 The Nineteenth Annual “Truss Bustin’ Competition during Engineers’ Week was a huge success for local Omaha area high school students.  This year saw the turning over of the responsibilities from Bruce Harris, who did an exceptional job running the Truss Bustin’ Competition through the first eighteen years, to John Hill who co-coordinated the Competition with Bruce for this year.

The Balsa Wood Truss Competition was held during Engineers’ Week in February at the Westroads Mall.  Altogether 143 trusses were entered in the competition from Northwest, Gross Catholic, Burke and North.

A recording error on one truss led to some confusion whether a particular truss would be third place or a much lower place was resolved in fairness by awarding two trusses to the third place finish.

The top three places for the Nineteenth Annual 2007 event went to:

1st Place - Kyle O'Doherty, Burke: $150.00 prize and certificate

2nd Place - Justin Duster, North: $75.00 prize and certificate

3rd Place - $50.00 - Joe Teplitsky, North: $50.00 prize and certificate

3rd Place - $25.00 - Breanne Kjar & Michaella Spenceri, Gross Catholic: $50.00 prize and certificate

The students were given rules to follow that in general allowed freedom for their own creativity yet allowed some control so the truss all fit in the testing device.  The testing device has a load cell and digital screen that locks in on the maximum load in pounds at failure of the truss.  The load is divided by the weight of the truss in grams to the 1.25 power. The intent of the 1.25 power is to stress to the students the importance of putting material where is helps for strength and providing an economical truss.  The load-to-weight ratios were expected to be lower than past competitions because a change was made in the rules three years ago that made the student consider seven potential loading conditions rather than the same loading condition year after year. The result of this change in loading has made the trusses heavier to account for the seven potential loadings when one loading is randomly selected just before testing begins.  The truss device can apply up to three concentrated loads six inches apart across a 24-inch span.  This year the loading condition randomly selected was two concentrated loads one 6-inches in from the right support and the other at the center of the span.  This was the fourth year in a row that the loading condition put an unsymmetrical loading condition on the trusses. A device braces the truss laterally at the third concentrated load point, but no load is applied vertically.

The load-to-weight ratio of the winning truss was 2.61 ( up from 2.44 last year). The winning truss from Burke High School weighed 25.19 grams (0.77 ounces) and carried a total load at failure of 147.2 pounds.

Tom Marnik, President NE ASCE and John Hill, Truss Bustin' Competition Co-Coordinator, participated in presenting the prizes and framed certificates to the students at their High Schools.

Far more people are involved with helping to put this contest together than most of us would imagine, including many people that are not ASCE members, but are dedicated, willing people to help out the students and their schools by contributing to this contest.  “Thank you!”, to all these helpers.  It would be an impossible task to accomplish the Truss Bustin' Competition this if it were not for these people.

A special thanks to all the Nebraska Section members and others that helped to contact the metro area high schools and assisted during the truss testing, the Student Chapter of ASCE, that helped with the weighing and testing recording, and Dr. Massoum Moussavi UNO Student Chapter Faculty Advisor, Dr. Chris Tuan Former Faculty Advisor from UNO that helped with weighing trusses. Thanks to the Civil Engineering Round Table for the prime location at the Westroads Mall and those High Schools that participated.  We look forward to more participation from other metro high schools and possibly expanding to include the Lincoln High Schools in the years ahead.  And last of all, thanks to Bruce Harris for all the coordination and encouragement he has given to this event over the years.

Photo 1 (below) – Burke High School, from Left to Right – Ryan Hoy, Instructor Burke High School, Kyle O'Doherty - 1st Place, Tom Marnik, President NE Section ASCE

Photo 2 – North High, from Left to Right – Lee Kallstrom, Instructor North High School, Justin Duster, 2nd Place, John Hill, NE Section ASCE, Joe Teplitsky, 3rd Place, Gene Haynes, Principal North High School

Photo 3 – Daniel Gross High School, from Left to Right – Breanne Kjar - co-3rd Place, Tom Marnik, President NE Section ASCE, Michaella Spenceri - co-3rd Place, Steve Hamersky, Instructor Daniel Gross High School.

As a side note, Omaha North has a very good Engineering Technology curriculum for high school students.  As part of the experience in presenting for the awards to the students, other students conducted an impromptu interview with John Hill the day of the award presentations to the Omaha North students and have placed the “interview” on the school site as a podcast.  To see “Truss Award Part I, Fellas Night Out” go to web.mac.com/omahanorth.

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