Making of the Winners trophy

We put a lot of effort into making something special for the winner of the Student Design Competition. One of our judges makes beautiful furniture and art from reused materials. Some of the material he was able to acquire was from the S curve earthquake retrofit of the Oakland Bay Bridge. He generously offered to donate a piece of this material to the project. One day we went out to his storage area and brought back an L beam from a truss that had been sandblasted down to the raw steel. The steel was quite impressive and in great condition for being Carnegie steel from the early 1930’s. We took the beam back to his studio and cut off an appropriate sized piece for what we needed. He then used a waterjet to cut out the overall shape and design. We then took the raw piece to an engraver to finish the product and create a unique trophy for the winner of the Bay Bridge House Design Competition.