Two thousand five hundred pounds of water were siphoned from the Quadfountain into several boxes set atop a small bridge. A crowd watched asthe weight sitting on top of the structure slowly increased. Nothinghappened, just as the bridge designers had hoped.

The event waspart of Seattle U's Steel Bridge Club's test for their latest bridgemodel. Club members were testing the strength of the structure by seeingif it could hold an appropriate amount of water. The test Feb. 20 waspart of the club's preparation for the Steel Bridge competition thatmembers will enter in the spring.

The bridge models are testedat the competitions by a load of 2,500 pounds and then judged forstructural efficiency-attributes such as strength-to-weight, stiffnessand economy. Economy is the number of members in a team, and the speedat which they assemble their bridge out of the box.

On the firstday of spring quarter, the Steel Bridge Club will be in Montana at thesteel bridge regional competition. Teams that place in regionals go onto compete in the national competition.

Seattle U's Steel BridgeClub took second place in regionals and sixteenth in nationals lastyear, where they also placed third in the stiffness category.

Part of the challenge for competing teams is the unpredictable bridge requirements.

"Theychange the guidelines every year," said junior Mike Shattuck, bridgeteam member. "So you can't duplicate a winning bridge."

Each yearthe bridges are limited by a different set of dimensions-last year, forexample, bridges could be six feet high, while this year they may onlystand two and a half feet.

As the club discovered last year, thejudges will also revert to an appraisal of the model's appearance in theevent of a tie. Last year Seattle U's bridge was bumped to third instiffness because it didn't look quite as good as its competition.

TheSeattle U Steel Bridge Club is mostly a side project for civilengineering students, although one member is in the electricalengineering program. Team members spend the fall and winter quartersdesigning and building a working bridge model.