"This year, we have 28 teams from all over Canada and the United States, from Indiana, one from Vermont, also," said student volunteer Julie Chartier. "The goal is to have the lightest bridge that can hold the greatest load," explained Louis Boissoneau, another student volunteer.

Concordia fielded two teams this year. Contestant Phylroy Lopez laid out the rules. "We can only use popsicle sticks, toothpicks, dental floss and Lepage's white glue. We can use as much as we want, but we can't exceed a weight of four kilograms." As his team-mates put the finishing touches on their bridge, The Virtual Erection, Lopez said the team came to a consensus on the design. "It all comes down to numbers in the end. We try to pump through different calculations. We've done a lot of computer analysis on it. It's a basic truss structure, all fixed ends. We have only two pivot points at the supports."

Across the tunnel, in the Hall Building, the other Concordia team used a different design strategy. Its bridge, Troubled Waters, "is all clamped into molds and pressed for high strength," according to team spokesman Brent Dinsmore.

"We started a couple of months ago, pressing, and then letting it dry," Dinsmore said. "You've got to let the piece dry for a couple of weeks before all the glue is cured throughout the wood. And then you go and cut, and try to remove as much as you can to make it as light as possible, but leave [some] so it can take as much weight as possible."

Gordon Rokes' teammates from the Vermont Technical College bailed out before the competition, but he didn't let the lack of support deter him from entering his Solo Mission.

Rokes drew on his experience with real bridges. "I had a business building models of Vermont covered bridges," he said, while making final adjustments on his entry in the J.W. McConnell atrium. "They were very intricate and detailed, about half the [competition] size of this bridge.

"I would go to the bridge and draw it out and make an exact replica out of balsa wood, and mount it on a mahogany base with a brass plate with the name of the bridge. They were fairly expensive, from $800 to $2,000." He sold them to tourists who wanted a little piece of Vermont.

Bridge-building combines art with technology. Aesthetics count for 25 per cent of the final score. Building Engineering Professor Paul Fazio, one of the three judges, explained his aesthetic criterion: "You know when you see it."

Another first-time judge was 1986 Engineering alumnus John Marcovecchio. The president of Magil Construction explained why he accepted the students' invitation. "This proves how good or how bad they can be in the real world. My vice-president [Concordia engineering alumnus Alain Gauvin] won this competition in the early 1990s. So we look for potential candidates that will take the place of people like me in the future, and carry on in business." Marcovecchio is looking for "something that looks nice and works. Something that can really be built."

The tubular design by the team from Lakehead University, in Thunder Bay, took a tangent from real bridges in the real world, where the whole span carries the load as vehicles cross it. Lakehead spokesman G.W. Carlson explained. "The bridges have to take a single point load; the best design for that is a triangle. The strongest, widest structure is a pipe design."

The tubular design by the team from Lakehead University, in Thunder Bay, took a tangent from real bridges in the real world, where the whole span carries the load as vehicles cross it. Lakehead spokesman G.W. Carlson explained. "The bridges have to take a single point load; the best design for that is a triangle. The strongest, widest structure is a pipe design."

It's a grudge match between the crusher and the Lakehead team. "We started back three years ago with a similar tubular design. We haven't been able to actually get a reading on the weight this can take. Last year it got broken. There was an accident when the machine malfunctioned, and crushed the bridge before it was set up to read it." Nonetheless, the team kept refining the design. "The factor that's working against us is the weight of the bridge. We've made holes in the sides to lighten the weight." "Is that a bird house?" heckled an opponent, as the bridge went under the crusher.

It's a grudge match between Once more, the machine won. But this time it was because the crusher wasn't calibrated high enough to measure the breaking point. Once the machine was recalibrated, the structure had been too weakened by the first encounter with the crusher to take the load again.

And the winners were... The winner this year was Dupont et Dupont, by the team from École de technologie supéieure, which weighed just over one kilogram and took a load of 2,533 pounds. Second place went to Master Builders, from the Université de Sherbrooke. Also in the money were 100% fat free from École Polytechnique, ETS team's Pont Lévis, and Lakehead University's Round II. Concordia had two entries, but failed to place this year. The award for "Best Aesthetics" and "Most Innovative Concept" went to the Université de Sherbrooke's IPPUS.