Spaghetti bridge building championship in Budapest

MTI – The RECCS World Championship in Spaghetti Bridge Building took place at the Óbuda University on May 26. The bridge of the winning Romanian team from the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca withstood a load of 455.30 kg before breaking.

According to reccs.uni-obuda.hu, the history of spaghetti bridge building spans several decades. Many technical universities host their own championships year by year. In Hungary, the first competition was held by the Ybl Miklós Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering over 20 years ago. In 2004, they were joined by the Donát Bánki Faculty of Mechanical and Safety Engineering, who, after organising their own event and achieving great success, decided to compete internationally at the Okanagan University College in Canada. They won 6 of the past 8 years’ championships, often setting a new world record as well.

The first international competition in Hungary was held in 2005. Participants from Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Serbia competed against each other in bridge and support categories. Since 2011, RECCS is a world championship with contestants from Iran, Latvia, Germany, Italy, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Portugal.

The contestants have to follow strict rules to participate in the competition. The bridges are built using commercially available or homemade dried pasta and the elements are bound by glue. The dimensions of the bridge are specified, as well as the weight of the structure which cannot exceed 1000 grams. The bridge must contain a continuous pathway between the two sides, as well as the loading platform through which the strength of the bridge is measured. The current record, set by Szilárd Attila Márkos in support category in 2011, is 578 kg.

Photos: MTI

Source: reccs.uni-obuda.hu; mti.hu