Proving that spaghetti is not just for dinner, the students of Johns Hopkins University’s Engineering Innovation summer program used the noodles to build intricate, miniature bridges and then wrecked them — all in the name of science. On Friday afternoon, the eight high school students participating in the competition pitted their engineering know-how against one another to see whose bridge could hold the most weight before splintering into pieces. The competition closed out four weeks of study under the summer program, which was taught by Muhammad Kehnemouyi, a full-time physics professor at Montgomery College, and Fred Katiraie, a full-time math professor at Montgomery College.
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The last team to go consisted of Sruti Bharat, 17, of California, Rohan Bhale, 15, of Olney, and Justin Yin, 17, of Wheaton. The group put weight after weight on the bridge and attached another chain to add more weights, but the bridge remained in one piece.

After adding all the weights available to them, Katiraie ran into another room to retrieve more. The team’s bridge held almost 60 times its actual weight before splintering.