You won’t believe how much weight this pasta bridge can take

More than 250 students, including one who has waited over a decade to participate, converged on Okanagan College’s (OC) Kelowna campus, to see whose spaghetti bridge would reign supreme.

In addition to furthering their knowledge of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), participants of the contest – back for the first time since pre-pandemic – also came away with some valuable lessons in teamwork.

“This event is really exciting because, I mean, just flat out science and technology is exciting,” OC’s Interim Dean for Science and Technology, Rick Federley told Kelowna10.

“In an event like this, it really gets students the opportunity to get their first hands in, in designing something and testing something.”

The competition has a wide range of age groups and leagues that compete, which Federly hopes will inspire younger generations to take an interest in STEM.

“It's something in their childhood that they can pin back and they can say that, this is something that was my first time to design something,” Federley said. “Then when they get to our programs, they're just really excited. They dive right in, and they become our future scientists and technologists.”

Students had a chance to work in groups to build bridges on-site during the morning for the team-building competition, while others carefully transported elaborate pre-constructed spaghetti structures from across the valley and as far away as Vancouver.

For the competitor who traveled the farthest of all, the day yielded a victory more than a decade in the making.

Rouzbeh Rouzbehani first attempted to travel from Iran to Okanagan College for the Contest 12 years ago.

Unfortunately, the political situation in his homeland at the time did not allow him to make the journey. The bridge he constructed that year would go untested at OC, but he never forgot it.

A dozen years after his first thwarted attempt to enter the contest, Rouzbehani’s bridge beat out all the rest in the Heavyweight category, resisting a whopping 94 kilograms of tension.

“I am so happy and so excited. I can’t put it into words,” he said. “I’m incredibly proud to be here.”