PORT ANGELES — If building model bridges were an Olympic event, Port Angeles students would horde the gold and silver medals.
For Garrett Lumens, a senior at Port Angeles High School, the numbers tell it all.
* About 100 hours.
* About 3,000 Popsicle sticks, trimmed and sanded.
* Between 30 and 32 inches long.
* No more than 350 grams — about 13 ounces — in total weight.
Add it all up, and for Lumens the total comes to about 922 pounds — the average size of an adult male polar bear.
That’s the amount of weight supported by Lumens’ Popsicle stick bridge at the American Society of Engineers’ 11th annual Bridge Building Competition held Saturday in Seattle.
“It’s a lot of work, but it’s fun to do,” Lumens said Wednesday of his bridge, which took first place in the competition.
The next strongest bridge in the competition held 657 pounds.
Local students take second
But second place didn’t go to one of the other large schools from the Puget Sound region vying in the competition, but to Olympic Christian School, 43 O’Brien Road, which has 45 students.
Juniors Amy Hyatt and Natasha Stevenson created the second-place bridge.
“Little Port Angeles did great,” said Marnie DeWees, who teaches upper level math and science at Olympic Christian.
“I’m so proud of us.”
Bridges were judged not just on how much weight they could hold, but their aesthetic appeal as well.
The bridge built by Hyatt and Stevenson held 515 pounds, which put them in fifth place. But aesthetically, the two students placed fourth.
Overall, that placed them second in the competition.
It was the first year students at the school participated in the event.
Hyatt said she was shocked by how much weight her bridge held.
“I didn’t even think it was going to hold half of that,” she said.