PORT ANGELES — Showing some big skills for a comparatively small school, Peninsula College’s engineers-in-training made their mark at the 75th SAMPE Convention.
As the only two-year school, Peninsula College teams took third, seventh and ninth at the international Student Bridge Competition in Charlotte, N.C., in mid-May.
In its 22nd year, this Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering competition requires students to build 24-inch long carbon fiber model bridges that must hold at least 9,000 pounds, then compete based on weight.
The lightest bridge takes first place. More than 64 total teams entered from the U.S., Mexico, Brazil and China, competing in six classes of model bridges.
The Peninsula College Pirates defeated 23 other teams from the University of Washington, UCLA, University of Delaware, University of Maryland, McGill University, Centro Universitário da FEI (Brazil), California State-Long Beach, West Virginia University and other engineering schools.
In Class A (carbon fiber I-beams) competition, Team Snap, Crackle, Crack (Peninsula College’s Adam Jordan) held 9,252 pounds before breaking at 559 grams (1.2 pounds), beating California State-Long Beach for third place. Perennial winner Chengdu Aeronautic (China) held to first place by only 2 grams, with Western Washington University in second at 518 grams.
Team Turtle Club (Peninsula College’s Jason Lebeck) withstood 14,580 pounds before failure, which at 753 grams, giving PC seventh place. Team Ace of Bass (PC’s Colin Kahler), with an innovative sine-wave beam, broke at 9,519 pounds at 1,049 grams, garnering PC a ninth place finish. Team Old Yella (PC’s Emerson Stipes) broke 420 at pounds low at 675 grams in his first time to design and build a bridge for the competition.
Peninsula College took third place last year as well.
Competing teams credited the Composite Recycling Technology Center, is co-located with the Advanced Manufacturing program in Port Angeles, with being a significant help by allowing students use of the equipment and facilities, donating carbon fiber materials, and performing engineering reviews.
Other supporting sponsors include donations from the Peninsula College Foundation and the SAMPE Seattle Chapter, plus The Boeing Company, Altair, Heatcon Composites, David H. Sutherland & Co., Composites Washington, ClickBond, Airtech Composites, Toray Advanced Materials and Angeles Composites Technology Inc.
Peninsula College’s Advanced Manufacturing program graduates students with an AAS degree in composites, computer numerical control (CNC) machining, computer-aided drafting (CAD) and related subjects.
For more information, contact James Russell at jrussell@pencol.edu.
