The annual Lincoln-Way East bridge building contest was held on December 11, 2024. There was a total of 123 entries in the contest this year from science students and teachers in all grade levels.
This year's winner was Andrew Kovalcik. His bridge had a mass of 11.7 grams (about the mass of 2 nickels) and it held 33.62 kg (around 75 pounds). The winning bridge is determined by efficiency. The equation for efficiency is the mass held divided by the mass of the bridge. Andrew’s efficiency was 2874. Efficiency states that the bridge held 2874 times its own mass. The 2nd-4th places are as follows: Samuel Hernandez (2569 efficiency), Matthew Konow (2304 efficiency) and Ethan Nagy (2293 efficiency). All four of these students are entitled to represent LWE at the regional contest held at IIT (Illinois Institute of Technology) on January 28th , 2025.
"I was very impressed with the quality of the bridges and the number of bridges entered into the competition. This has been a great tradition at LWE and the students did a great job in participation and effort. It is great to see the students work on projects outside of the classroom that relate to topics learned in the classroom. It was obvious from their designs and results, that many students devoted a lot of hard work and time into this project. I think the most rewarding part of this project is to hear the students talk the next day about what they could do differently next year to increase the efficiency of their bridges. It seems that this project sparks the creativity of a lot of students and fosters hard work and creativity," said Mr. Michael Murphy, LWE science teacher.
In addition to Mr. Murphy, teachers who assisted with organizing the event included Wes Cooley, Maria Wilson, Dawn McAvoy, Jaime Voliva, Beth Swaney, Shane Tucker, Carlie Premo, April Richter, Madelyn Daley, and Nick Schwieger.
