McAuley Seniors Place in Bridge Building Contest's Top 20

MMc Bridge Contest: (from left ) Tiffany Pickett ’16 (Olympia Fields), Emma Clark ’16 (Beverly) and Sandra Khouri ’16 (Palos Hills).

Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School seniors Emma Clark (Beverly), Tiffany Pickett (Olympia Fields) and Sandra Khouri (Palos Hills) placed in the top 20 for their region in the Chicago Regional Bridge Building Contest at the Illinois Institute of Technology on Jan. 19.

Emma, Tiffany and Sandra are part of the engineering principles class at McAuley. This class, taught by Bob Thomas, focuses on hands-on application with a homework load more aligned with college courses. Most of their work involves big projects and keeping a lab book consisting of material lists, drawings and detailed steps of their procedures.

The class began work on the bridges in early December as their second quarter project, starting out by sketching basic designs in their lab books before creating their designs online and finally constructing their bridges with the materials specified by the regional contest committee.

When completed, the girls were tested for efficiency as well as the amount of weight the bridge would hold before collapsing. The top three students were chosen to participate in the Chicago Regional Bridge Building Contest.

The contest was started by Roy Coleman of Morgan Park High School more than 20 years ago as a way to promote the study and application of fundamental principles of physics, as well as to help high school students develop “hands on” skills through bridge construction.

The regional contest has been held at IIT since its creation and is run by a Chicago-based committee of secondary school teachers, university faculty and engineers.