May 14, 2026
The Engineering Mechanics course, together with the Future Engineers Club, recently wrapped up its Truss Competition. First- and second-year students from the Department of Civil Engineering took part, spending weeks designing their truss bridges, running structural analyses, and building the physical models themselves.
The process covered the full arc of a structural project: choosing a geometry, calculating loads, selecting materials, and putting it all together by hand. It asked students to apply what they had learned in class to something they could actually hold, test, and see fail or succeed.
The live load test was the centrepiece of the day. Each bridge was loaded incrementally, and students got to see how their designs performed under real force. For many, it was the first time the numbers from their coursework translated into something physical, and the results spoke for themselves.
Third-year students stepped up to supervise the event, which added a lot to the day. Younger students had people to turn to who had been through the same course recently, and the supervisors got something out of it too, going back over concepts they had studied and explaining them to others.
