Calvin Students Design Bridge Over River

May 7, 2007 == MEDIA ADVISORY

Summary: A team of senior students at Calvin College designed a bridge to
span the St. Joseph River channel in St. Joseph, Michigan.

Full story, including video, see
http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2006-07/the-pedestrians.htm

The senior engineering design projects at Calvin College tend to encourage
ambitious thinking.

Among this year’s crop of senior projects is a concept that would take $4
million and 350 tons of steel to realize: It’s an automated, retractable
pedestrian bridge designed to span the St. Joseph River channel in St. Joseph,
Michigan.

The bridge, or at least a scale model of it, was produced by “The
Pedestrians,” whose members are Craig Baker, 21, a mechanical engineer from
Strathroy, Ontario; LeAnne Bock, 22, a civil and mechanical engineer from
Almont, Michigan; Melanie Haagsma, 22, a civil engineer from Grand Rapids; and
Abby Stemler, 21, a civil engineer from Elk River, Minnesota.

Their bridge had its genesis in an internship that saw Bock residing for a
summer in St. Joe while she worked in nearby Bridgman. On the south side of the
St. Joseph channel was Silver Beach, a popular summer destination, and on the
north side was the aptly named North Pier Lighthouse, another popular summer
destination. Bock found herself frequently giving directions to tourists who
wanted to walk from one site to the other.

“It was a three-mile hike back up into town across a bridge that was also a
highway,” she recounts. “So, they had to walk next to a semi-busy road and
then back downtown through an industrial park and through a residential area to
the other side.”

Bock remembered that long trek around the channel when the senior design team
began meeting to brainstorm about a project.

“We were looking for a project that combined civil and mechanical aspects of
engineering, and one of the ideas was a moveable bridge,” she says. “We
said, ‘Why not?’”

The team won support for their proposed bridge, which would reduce the
three-mile hike across the channel to a quarter-mile saunter, from John
Hodgson, the assistant city manager of St. Joseph.

“He was really excited about the idea of having a bridge there,” says
Haagsma. “We met with him a couple of times and toured the waterfront
area.”

For now, because of the expense, the bridge will only be realized in the
student model, which The Pedestrians showed off during the Senior Projects Open
House, held 4:30 through 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 5 at the Calvin Engineering
Building.

-end-
Received on Mon May 7 11:45:04 2007