Newtown High School Bridge Design Team

Competes At West Point

By Susan Coney

Sophomores Paul Marcuccilli and Brian Pennarola represented Newtown High School in the fourth annual West Point Bridge Design Contest, which took place on Friday, April 8. The United States Military Academy presented the West Point Bridge Design Contest, which is geared to students in middle school and high school throughout the nation.

West Point, the oldest college of engineering in the country, developed the contest four years ago to provide middle school and high school students with a realistic and engaging introduction to engineering.

The purpose of the Internet-based competition is to challenge students to create the most efficient virtual bridge design, using advanced math, science, and technology skills, in a hands-on design experience.

The contest, sponsored by The American Society of Civil Engineers, is free and contestants may compete individually or in teams of two. Participants may enter as often as they like. Prizes include laptop computers and cash scholarships for all finalists. The contest website is bridgecontest.usma.edu.

The contest is comprised of three rounds. The Qualifying Round took place January 6 through February 28. To enter students formed a team, downloaded and installed the award-winning West Point Bridge Designer software (available at no cost on the contest website), and used the software to design a bridge. The team must then return to the contest website to register and upload the bridge design for judging.

The website provides immediate feedback about the contestants’ current standings. Contestants may submit as many designs as they wish in the qualifying round. From the qualifying round, the top ten teams from each of the four contest zones proceed to the semifinal round, which was held March 12. The top five semifinalists advanced to the final round on April 8.

Newtown is the only school in the country to make it to the final round four years in a row. Encouraged by their architectural design teacher, Jay Daly, Northeast United States Zone One Champions Paul Marcucilli and Brian Pennarola had a reputation to uphold as they beat out more than 16,000 teams and became one of the five semifinalists.

Two years ago, Newtown students and brothers, Rob Cuccio, currently a sophomore majoring in engineering at Vermont Tech, and Tom Cuccio, currently a senior in high school in Carmel, Indiana, took first place at the final round. The Cuccio family has since relocated to Indiana but that did not stop younger brother Dan Cuccio from participating in this years’ competition. Although Dan’s team did not advance to the finals, he flew back to Connecticut to join Newtown High School student Jack Griffin to participate in the 2005 West Point competition.

This is the second year that the Marcucilli and Pennarola team made it to the finals. Both students made it to the final round as freshmen in 2004. After hundreds of hours of work both sophomores remained modest about their accomplishments. Brian commented, “It started out as a game, solving a big puzzle, then you saw different aspects of the project. It takes time but the rewards are great. This year there will be no element of surprise. The most stressful aspect is you have to be prepared for almost anything.”

Paul agreed saying, “I loved the puzzle solving aspect, but I did it for the money; I thought it was an easy way to make money. This is an awesome opportunity. We can handle the pressure better since we have one year under our belt. We just need to get into the zone.”

The winning team members in the competition get $10,000 each.

The final round of the West Point Bridge Design Contest was conducted on April 11 at West Point. As parents, teachers and an enthusiastic crowd of spectators, silently cheered them on the five finalist teams received a new project for the West Point Bridge Design Contest of 2005.

After two hours of intense collaboration to develop the most efficient bridge the Marcucilli and Pennarola team won third place. NHS teacher Jay Day was extremely proud of his young students.

“This gives the students the opportunity to use complex, higher level thinking skills needed for problem solving. This accomplishment took hundreds and hundreds of hours of work,” he said. “These students come out of this experience knowing they can compete anywhere at a world class level. The sky is the limit.”