Spaghetti bridge and welding medals

Eagle River Secondary students have been bringing home the prizes after two recent spaghetti bridge building competitions held at regional Skills Canada events. SD83 students have taken part in two competitions, one at Okanagan College in Kelowna and the other at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops.

At Okanagan College, in the secondary spaghetti bridge building division Julia Dessert (Charles Bloom Secondary) claimed top spot but second through fifth went to Eagle River Secondary students:
Second – Tommy Bland, Jake Erbo (Eagle River Secondary)
Third – Emily Gordon (Eagle River Secondary)
Fourth – Hunter Martin, Bryce Mayer (Eagle River Secondary)
Fifth – Thomas Tune, Alyssia Phommakaskione, Paxton Watson (Eagle River Secondary)

At the regional Skills Canada competition in Kamloops on March 6 there were two divisions for SD83 students, a junior division and a high school division. Competitors from regional high schools had the opportunity to compete in automotive service, cabinet making, carpentry, culinary arts, electrical wiring and welding.

Four SD83 students competed at this level with A.L. Fortune Secondary’s Dayton Bittner winning bronze in welding. Also doing well but finishing out of the medals were Liam Daly (welding), Nimi Goossen (automotive service), and Isaac Gunning (cabinet making), all of Pleasant Valley Secondary School.

At the Cariboo Junior Skills competition (grades 6-8) students can compete in gravity vehicle races, potential energy vehicle, spaghetti bridge, sumo robots and wind turbines.

ERS continued its winning ways as the team of Evan Den Dekker, Braden Northway and Destiny Rivait from Eagle River Secondary won first place at the junior spaghetti bridge challenge.

As well, another ERS team picked up third place in the competition which was open to students in Grades 6 to 9. This team was comprised of comprised of Matt Fehling, Ava Fischer-Boneham and Emma Delasalle.

The goal of the competition was to build a bridge that was as light as possible while still being able to support a kilogram of weight for at least 60 seconds.

Shuswap Middle School also took several teams to the competition at Thompson Rivers’ University. It was their first year of attending.  SMS had a high success rate with 4/5 of their teams building bridges that withstood the one kg weight test for the allotted one minute time period.  The highest placing team finished fourth at the competition.