Glue, balsa wood, voila!

If you build it, you might win - and learn something along the way.

That was the lure to participate in Yuba College’s inaugural bridge building contest, held Tuesday evening on campus. Yuba College and local high school students alike were encouraged to test their knowledge and construction skills to create the best-looking and strongest bridges for cash prizes, provided by the Yuba City Rotary Club.

Nearly 20 model bridges built only with balsa wood and carpenter’s glue were put to the test.

“I want them to be able to understand the need for structure and civil engineers,” said Yuba College engineering instructor Veronica Torres. “There’s a national need. Many of the bridges (in the country) are more than 50 years old. This shows them they can do something.”

The $400 first prize for maximum bridge strength was won by the lone high school contestant, River Valley High School senior Jordan Rutledge. The $150 first-place award for aesthetic design went to Genneth Lawas.

After passing through an assembly line of judges where weight and length were measured, bridges were given the ultimate test of durability through applied force, which means that too much compression on a bridge could result in a collapse.

Engineering student Jillian Melton, 25, and her daughter, Amalia Leri, 3, stood patiently on the stairs of the college cafeteria watching as sand was poured in to a metal bucket that was attached to her bridge. When the maximum amount of 74.1 pounds was added and her bridge did not break, Melton breathed a sigh of relief.

“I’m very surprised,” she said. “I expected it to be strong, but I didn’t expect it to be that strong.”

Melton said she spent roughly five days building the structure for the contest, most of which was devoted to research. Participating in the contest, she said, could help with her chemical engineering career choice.

“It’s nice to be able to use what you’ve learned in a hands-on experience,” Melton said. “You don’t always get to do that at a junior college.”

The hands-on experience is what drew Steve Lay, 20, and Joe Walters, 19, to build a bridge they named “Wheat Thins” and enter it.

“It’s a project other than one you do for class,” Lay said.

The duo said they researched bridge designs online to help them create one that would be strong enough to hold a lot of weight.

“It’s different than other peoples’ designs,” Walters said about their creation that required the structure support to be at the base of the bridge without suspension.

“There was a strong one from West Virginia we found; we tried to do it like that,” he said.

Before claiming one of the top prizes, Lawas, 18, said she built her bridge because she has an interest in architecture.

“This was sort of a chance for me to see if I could actually do something,” she said with a laugh. “I hope I built it so it could withstand some weight.”

Appeal-Democrat reporter Andrea Koskey can be reached at 749-4709 or at akoskey@appealdemocrat.com.