Spaghetti Bridge Building Contest serves up fun and learning at ´ó·¢¿ìÈýƽ̨
Friday marked a triumphant return for a popular pasta-themed community event at ´ó·¢¿ìÈýƽ̨, as the 38th annual Spaghetti Bridge Building Competition brought loads of fun and friendly competition to a boil.
More than 250 students from elementary through post-secondary converged on ´ó·¢¿ìÈýƽ̨’s Kelowna campus on Mar. 3, 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 team work.
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.
And 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 ´ó·¢¿ìÈýƽ̨ 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 ´ó·¢¿ìÈýƽ̨, but he never forgot it.
“I was incredibly proud of that