The project started on February 24, amid storms and rain on campus. War broke out in Eastern Europe, causing the initiators to wonder whether this project could go ahead. “We sat down right away. What now? We have said to our volunteers: if someone does not feel comfortable with this, he can withdraw,” student Jaime de Bruin told Tubantia. No one decided to do this. And De Bruin was happy with that, because various parties had already contractually committed themselves to the project. “It was impossible to backtrack,” he emphasizes. For example, the team borrowed the crates from the brewer.
On Monday, a huge ten-meter tower made of beer crates will already be on the construction site. A second tower is to be built 36 meters away. But it’s all about the arch bridge in between, Tubantia writes. It’s almost finished. Saturday is the record attempt during the open day of the UT. Then the scaffolding on which the bridge now rests will be removed, together with the tensioning straps. If the tower stands independently for an hour, the party can begin.
Very hard
In total, the bridge will consist of 12,600 beer crates. The record of the Eindhoven University of Technology stands at 26.69 meters. Earlier attempts by other universities failed in 2018 and 2020. And that is not surprising, because it is very difficult to build a solid bridge, De Bruin tells Turbantia. “The design team on our committee wrote a mega-complicated mathematical program. A software model has been rolled out there. What it comes down to is that the position of each crate in the bridge is predetermined in advance,” he says. When placing a crate, volunteers look at the drawing to see where it should go – horizontally or vertically.
The project is not just about fun, because students gain technical knowledge and deal with peripheral matters, such as finding sponsors and applying for permits. “Many of us start working as a project leader or consultant after graduation,” says De Bruin. “In this project, we learn to behave like professionals.”
The record attempt not only keeps the students busy, but also the brewers. In Delft they are building with Heineken, in Eindhoven with Bavaria and in Enschede with Grolsch.
No one from the Guinness Book of Records is present on Saturday, because the process took too much time. But that should not spoil the fun: „If it works, it will be a world record. It’s just not recorded,” says the student.