Pounds and pounds of bricks on aspaghetti-like structure. Although it rests on a table, little by little it rises until it reaches the participant’s height. Will it hold out a little longer? In Room A06 of the School of Architecture, there is silence. The student adds one more brick, then another, until the stack begins to shift and, in a matter of seconds, crumbles into pieces.
The scene plays out again, with varying numbers of spaghetti strands, on structures that are taller or shorter, square, rectangular, or hexagonal. Under the watchful eyes of family, friends, and teachers, 21 teams test the strength of their structures in the first edition of the Spaghetti Challenge.
This was a competition in which10th-or 11th-gradestudents from any academic track (or their equivalent in the UTU’s technical high school program) were required to build a structure capable of supporting the weight of several bricks, at a minimum height of 40 cm above its base, with the greatest possible efficiency. For construction, they could only use 2.6 mm hollow circular dry paste and single-component instant adhesive.
Students were required to present their projects either individually or in groups of two. A total of 32 participants took part, representing high schools from both Montevideo and other parts of Uruguay.
On Thursday, August 22, 2019, at the School of Architecture of Universidad ORT Uruguay in Universidad ORT Uruguay, the structural tests of the projects were conducted, followed by the awards ceremony. At that event, the jury—composed of architect Ramiro Chaer, architect Ricardo Romero, and architect Ignacio Sambarino—announced the winners.
First place went to Sergio Duarte, a student at the UTU Institute of Construction Education, who received a 70% scholarship to pursue a degree inArchitectureor aBachelor’s degree in Interior Designat the Universidad ORT Uruguay School of Architecture. His structure was the most efficient: it had the best ratio between its own weight and the weight it supported.
Second place was awarded to Santiago Arizcun and Gastón Palermo from the Juan Zorrilla School in San Martín. These students were awarded full scholarships to studyDesign and Project Management with AutoCAD.
