Engineering a nationwide engineering design contest

Abstract

This paper concerns problems solved and lessons learned while conducting the West Point Bridge Design Contest,[1] with a focus on the design of technology support and operations behind the scenes. The contest is a nationwide, Internet-based competition for teams of one or two students, age 13 through grade 12, culminating in a final round with large cash prizes. In 2006 the contest is in its fifth year. We have previously reported it as a means of engineering outreach. [2] This work, on the other hand, is technical, concerning the engineering behind the contest that allows it to be run by a half-time administrator and two college faculty members working in their spare time. The design has successfully dealt with challenges including large service demand fluctuations, tied contest entries, participation by ineligible persons "masquerading" as true contestants, hackers, an extortionist, hardware failure, Internet outages, an artificially intelligent bridge optimizer, and other interesting tribulations, all of which were managed without mishap. Hence the goal of this paper is to pass on information useful to anyone contemplating related work, where similar occurrences are likely.