Pasta Builder 2023

After a three-year break due to the pandemic, SPbGASU once again hosted one of the most spectacular events of the year - the Pasta Builder competition. 

Competition participants

18 teams tried their hand at building towers from pasta and architectural plasticine. Eight teams competed in building pasta bridges. Not only students of Russian universities participated, but also schoolchildren; and pupils of school No. 106 of the Primorsky district of St Petersburg participated out of the competition.

Members of the competition jury Margarita Gurieva, senior lecturer at the Department of Architectural and Engineering Constructions, and Anton Gaido, Dean of the Faculty of Civil Engineering, examining the competition works

According to Anton Gaido, Dean of the SPbGASU Faculty of Civil Engineering, the competition is designed to consolidate the skills of students in building mechanics, architecture, building production technology, building process technology, strength of materials. The contestants were required to build not only quickly and economically, but also with high quality. The most obvious indicator of quality is if the towers and bridges don't collapse by nine o'clock the next morning.

The towers and bridges that stood the test of time were evaluated by a competitive jury. In the nomination "The tallest building. Tower" they took into consideration the height of the structure without a spire, architectural expressiveness, rational use of material, structural stability and rigidity. Mandatory requirement was that the lower part of the tower does not exceed the dimensions of the subframe (100 × 100 cm).

Places in the nomination “The tallest building. Tower" were distributed as follows.

The first place was taken by the "BridgeArt" team from the Tyumen Industrial University with 99 points. Team members: Bogdan Gizatullin, Olga Sokolova, Alexandra Ogibenina, Anastasia Bochkovskaya, Ilyas Khasanyanov.

As Alexandra Ogibenina said, the "BridgeArt" team participated in two nominations. The students built bridges as priority, but, unfortunately, their bridge failed to wait for the jury's verdict. But the tower was very strong. The secret of such success, according to the participant, is to trust your intuition and not be afraid to improvise.

Second place went to the "Feeling of Quality" team from SPbGASU (92 points). Team members: Alexander Grekov, Sofia Belostotskaya, Valeria Sorokovikova, Sofia Yarueva, Alisa Khromova.

Third place went to the "Rails, rails, sleepers, sleepers" team from SPbGASU (86 points). This team consisted of Anastasia Burnysheva, Ekaterina Oreshko, Svetlana Sokol and Elizaveta Pauk.

In the nomination “Building with the largest span. Bridge" they considered architectural expressiveness, rational use of material, structural stability and rigidity. In addition, the jury took into account the length of the bridge span between the extreme supports. The bridge was supposed to have a "roadbed" or "walkway".

The best in the nomination “Construction with the largest span. Bridge" became the following teams.

First place went to "Farfaliki" team from SPbGASU with a score of 109 points. The team included Angelina Savitskaya, Varvara Dericheva, Eva Miroshnichenko, Alina Lagkueva, Mikhail Rakhimov.

Alina Lagkueva said that initially the team's sketch of the bridge was different - with supports that need to be placed on the floor. But on the day of construction, the participants learned that this was unacceptable, so they urgently had to come up with a new sketch. “We wanted to try something interesting, we were nervous, we couldn’t decide, finally we settled on an arched solution. We went not to win, but to spend time interestingly and profitably, the excitement seized already in the process of work. At the awards ceremony, we rejoiced at the success of all the participants, but ourselves, we had already lost hope of winning - and were very happy about the victory, ”Alina noted.

“We'll try again next year. We want to win in the towers!” Alina said.

“We came to the conclusion that there are two design options that would make it possible to make the bridge span the largest: cables and arch. Finally, we discarded the idea with the cables and settled on the arch as the most stable and strong option. The load was distributed evenly on both supports of the arch, and the stiffening ribs did not allow it to move apart. We had several places with deformation, but the bridge survived until the end of the competition,” shared Eva Miroshnichenko.

The second place went to the "PASTROIM" team from the Belgorod State Technological University named after V. G. Shukhov, which scored 108 points, only one point behind the winner! Team members are: Pavel Lunin, Oleg Mishenin, Evgeny Vorobyov, Denis Gorbachev and Ivan Pakhomov.

The third place went to the "Article 9.4 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the RF" team from SPbGASU, which scored 103 points. Team members are: Albina Ushakova, Vera Danilova, Karina Shchetinina, Alexandra Belikova, Alina Nikolaeva.

Anton Golovin, Vice President of the Union of Architects of St Petersburg, at the awards ceremony

The organizers express their gratitude to the partner of the competition - the Union of Architects of St Petersburg represented by its vice-president Anton Golovin, as well as to the SPbGASU Student Council.

Congratulations to the winners and wishes of further success!