Second-year students in the Northampton Community College architecture program spent weeks constructing bridges from balsa wood, knowing this day would come. They tested the limits of those bridges in ...

It's not often that a class final involves destruction, but the culmination of Ashbrook Independent School's bridge-building class involved pushing balsa wood bridges to their limits and beyond.

Jack Kayser, left, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, watches as the load increases on a modified arch balsa wood structure built by Chris Stamford, right, during a balsa wood ...