Photo By Scott Pittman | Volunteers at the 2025 Navy Bridge Building Challenge. Students from nine local...... read more read more
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Students from nine local schools, as well as some homeschoolers, participated in the 2025 Navy Bridge Building Challenge hosted by Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division, Keyport and Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility at the U.S. Naval Undersea Museum, May 3.
The challenge, which kicked off in January, is an annual STEM outreach event designed to inspire school-aged children to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Students of all ages were provided with materials—straws and tape for elementary students, and popsicle sticks and glue for middle and high school students—to design and construct bridges capable of withstanding significant weight. Over 50,000 popsicle sticks were distributed for this year's competition.
A total of 176 bridges were tested. Participants brought their completed bridges to the museum, where weight was applied to the center of each bridge deck until the structure failed. Bridges could also be submitted in advance for testing.
This year’s winners were Carter from Cottonwood Elementary in Bremerton, Washington, whose bridge held 3,550 pennies; Tyler and Kaelyn from Poulsbo Middle School, each with a bridge holding 162 pounds; and Owen, Mike and Jack from North Kitsap High School in Poulsbo, whose bridge held 845 pounds.
“We tested some well-built bridges this past Saturday and were impressed by the time and determination students put into this project,” said NUWC Division, Keyport STEM Outreach Coordinator Sam De Lano, who initiated this year's challenge—through outreach to local schools, the command and the community—and oversaw the command's participation.
The competition was supported by Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command Northwest, Naval Base Kitsap, the U.S. Naval Undersea Museum, Puget Sound Navy Museum and employees and retirees from NUWC Division, Keyport and PSNS & IMF.
See highlights from the event in this YouTube short.
-KPT-
Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division, Keyport is headquartered in the state of Washington on the Puget Sound, about 10 miles west of Seattle. To provide ready support to Fleet operational forces at all major Navy homeports in the Pacific, NUWC Division, Keyport maintains detachments in San Diego, California and Honolulu, Hawaii, and remote operating sites in Guam; Japan; Hawthorne, Nevada; and Portsmouth, Virginia. At NUWC Division, Keyport, our diverse and highly skilled team of engineers, scientists, technicians, administrative professionals and industrial craftsmen work tirelessly to develop, maintain and sustain undersea warfare superiority for the United States.
| Date Taken: | 05.19.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 05.19.2025 18:11 |
| Story ID: | 498403 |
| Location: | KEYPORT, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 115 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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