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Major Sponsors

of the

annual

 

Physics Balsa Bridge Building Contest

Notre Dame Regional Secondary School

Vancouver BC Canada

Our title sponsor for the past several years. The APEG offices are not far from our school. We proudly display an APEGBC banner at the contest to acknowledge the financial support from this organization, the governing body for the province's engineers and geoscientists. Even more popular than the financial sponsorship is the famous APEG robo pen, which, along with other promotional items, is presented to our contestant students.

SRC is an electrical and mechnical consulting engineering firm, located in Burnaby BC, just across from the APEGBC offices. The firm has been a platinum sponsor for the past several years. In 2010, company principal, Bill Khangura, attended the contest and took part as an honorary bridge tester.

For the 30th anniversary contest in 2010 we were very proud to add McElhanney as a major sponsor. The McElhanney name is widely recognized in BC. Not only was 2010 a special year for our contest but it coincided with the 100th anniversary of this consulting engineering firm. At the 2010 contest two McElhanney bridge engineers took part in the testing of several bridges. We were honoured to have them attend (and they surprised the students by handing out high capacity flash drives!).

For the 2011 contest we were fortunate to have this major construction consortium sign on as a major sponsor. The Kiewit Flatiron general partnership is presently building the new Port Mann superbridge, as well as the Highway 1 upgrade from Vancouver to Langley. The Kiewit name is widely recognized in BC for major infrastructure projects, including the Sea-to-Sky highway project.

We are particularly proud of the support we receive from local universities and colleges. Simon Fraser University, through the School of Engineering Science and its director, Prof. Mehrdad Saif, has been a longtime sponsor of the event.

The University of British Columbia has been a longtime sponsor through various faculties and departments. For many years the Engineering Physics was a major supporter. For the past few years we have been sponsored through the engineering faculty itself, or through one of the sub-disciplines. This year we have the support of the Mechnical Engineering program.

BCIT's involvement with our contest arose through a parental contact. Not only is BCIT a financial supporter but students generally acknowledge that this institution sends over some very nice promotional items, some of which we hold back for presentation at our formal awards evening. A special thank you to Elizabeth Drews at BCIT for her interest in our project.

The ASTTBC has a special mission to support educational activities such as our bridge building contest. In addition to major financial support, ASTTBC usually sends over am amazing collection of promotional items. For 2011 this collection includes slinkys, rulers, pens and balsa gliders. Our first contact with ASTT was at the suggestion of a parent. We are particularly grateful to Jason Jung and Cheryl Blachuras at ASTT for their terrific support of the Physics Balsa Bridge Building Contest.

Buckland & Taylor is a key sponsor of this event. Our students know that this firm has a storied history, both local, national and international with bridge design and engineering. We  are particularly proud to have this North Vancouver-based company as one of our marquee sponsors. We acknowledge the support of Peter Diett at Buckland & Taylor for recognizing value in our event.

MMM Group first sponsored the contest in 2010. This Canadian program management, planning, engineering and geomatics firm includes a bridge engineering team. We were fortunate to have one of the engineers take part in the 2010 30th anniversary contest. We acknowledge the special support of our event through chief bridge engineer Jianping Jiang, and of Caroline Ngan who will be attending the 2011 event.

A former winner of the Physics Balsa Bridge Building Contest worked for a period at Associated Engineering at the company's Burnaby offices. In 2010 AE became an official sponsor through the efforts of engineer Paul Dufault, whose support of the contest we acknowledge.

The Canadian Society for Civil Engineering has a long history in Canada, as you can see from their logo. The BC chapter has been a sponsor of the contest on several occasions, particularly through local representative Max Bischoff. This year the CSCE contact is Rishi Gupta from BCIT.

This surely has to be the most interesting logo of any of our contest supporters. Ironworkers Local 97 is based not far from our school. This union local employs workers on many of the province's biggest engineering projects. Tragedy struck this proud group when several members were killed in the collapse of the Second Narrows Bridge during its construction more than 50 years ago. The bridge is now named the Ironworkers Memorial Crossing at Second Narrows.

For 2011 the Province of British Columbia has proclaimed the Year of Science. The contest acknowledges the support of the YoS program for a small grant that will go towards a student scholarship and for funds that will be used to improve the webcasting of the event on an annual basis. If your BC institution has a science outreach program of some sort you can still apply for YoS funding.

For several years the contest has been fortunate to have been able to set up large poster board displays featuring some of the Vancouver-area's major engineering infrastructure projects. This year we will once again have displays, featureing the Pitt River Bridge, the Perimeter project, and the Port Mann Bridge-Highway 1 project. In particular we thank Lori Alexander at the perimeter project office for assistance in obtaining these wonderful displays.

Epson Canada has been a contest sponsor for two years. The company has donated an Epson Workforce-series printer each of those two years. Last year the printer was awarded to contest winner Gino Circo for his bridge which reached a mass strength figure of 161 kg, the second highest in the thirty years that the contest has run.

Microsoft Canada, through our educational contact person, has donated an outstanding set of prize materials for several years. These prizes are highly sought after by our student contestants. This year, in addition to software prizes, the company has donated several Arc Mouse units. We are grateful to technology companies that recognize value in supporting events such as our contest.

During the 2010 contest preparations we became aware of a novel business in the United States that, among other items, produced to gorgeous bridge structures made of wood. One structure was a classic Warren Truss bridge, the other a spectacular cable-stayed bridge. Ron Toms, the owner of BridgesandTowers.com, kindly donated a kit of each bridge, which, after assembly, became featured display items at the contest.

FWD is a local engineering firm that has sponsored our contest for several years. One of the employees at FWD was a university classmate of one of our mathematics teachers. We are grateful for these sorts of connections that increase the community awareness of our event.

This year one of the local HP representatives presented a pair of digital headphones and a high-quality laptop bag to be awarded as prizes for the contest. We are grateful to HP Canada for this donation.

Following the 2010 contest the school was contacted by APEGBC for the donation of a special grant to our bridge building contest. Around that time we were looking at various crane models to become part of an engineering display. Just after receiving the grant we learned that Liebherr, a major European crane manufacturer had a Vancouver-area office. After making contact with the office we acquired three spectacular cranes at a significant discount. Furthermore, Liebherr's local office donated numerous promotional items for the contest, along with an addiional crane model, a Liebherr HS 855 crawler crane, identical to two production cranes presently in use on the Port Mann Bridge project.

For several years we have awarded copies of Bridging the World by Robert Cortright to our contest winners. Mr. Cortright each year donates an extra copy or two for our awards ceremonies. This year we hope to have enough copies to present some to our sponsors.

Thank you sponsors for enhancing the profile of our modest contest. Even though our event is a local one, we share all of our contest materials with the broader educational community through our long-running web site, http://www.balsabridge.com.

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