FALL 2025 Ransom Everglades LOG 29 L-R: Sirja Jõeveer ’25, Lucas Lafosse-Marin ’27, Marcus Mustad ’26, Max Wolfensberger ’26, Auguste Houlle ’27, David Martinez ’25, Connor Gumbs ’25, Michael Day ’25, Ivan Rosenfeld ’25 Bridge Mania Junior sets marks in recordbreaking bridge competition Max Wolfensberger ’26 designed a bridge that obliterated the school record for efficiency in RE’s annual bridge competition, giving him an impressive – and thrilling – victory in the highly anticipated annual event that drew a record 217 entries. Arguably RE’s most raucous tradition, the finale of the bridge competition annually opens on the stage of the Lewis Family Auditorium with physics teacher Paul Natland ’02 announcing, “Let’s get ready to crrrrrummbbbble!! Second-place finisher Marcus Mustad ’26 also topped the previous RE record for efficiency in the deciding competition, which featured 16 finalist bridges, thumping music and wildly cheering students. Lucas Lafosse-Marin ’27 finished third at the March 11 event; Connor Gumbs ’25 finished fourth and seventh with two different bridges; and Sirja Jõeveer ’25 finished fifth. Auguste Houlle ’27 won the aesthetic competition, and David Martinez ’25, Ivan Rosenfeld ’25 and Mikey Day ’25 finished second, third and fourth, respectively. A panel of teachers selected the aesthetic winners. Faculty members Natland, Bob DuBard, Astrid Dalins and Luis Luis Fayat managed both competitions, which included students from RE’s engineering, architecture, physics and other classes. The finalist bridges were tested with an increasing load to see which held the most weight by size before splintering. The bridges endured three rounds of testing that required they hold 1,300 times their weight – a higher standard than for any previous final at RE. Of the submissions, 55 came from seniors, 103 from juniors, 52 from sophomores and seven from ninth-grade students. Gumbs set an unofficial school record by submitting six bridges. Wolfensberger’s winning bridge held 2,805 times its weight before breaking, and Mustad’s bore 2,218 times its weight. Place Name and Year Mass Scale Efficiency 1 Max Wolfensberger ’26 23.45 142.4 2804.7 2 Marcus Mustad ’26 19.88 94.6 2217.8 3 Lucas Lafosse-Marin ’27 23.94 91.4 1781.0 4 Connor Gumbs ’25 19.48 73.4 1769.7 5 Sirja Jõeveer ’25 20.26 74.4 1723.9 6 Armin Stamate ’26 24.49 86.4 1648.4 7 Connor Gumbs ’25 23.34 78.4 1574.2 8 Charlotte Gould ’26 24.47 81.0 1549.7 9 Angelo Perez ’26 20.67 67.6 1540.5 10 Lucy Hansen ’26 17.29 55.6 1526.8 11 Rudy Pages ’25 19.75 58.6 1405.6 12 Diego Cruz ’25 14.85 41.6 1350.1 13 Oscar Vazquez ’26 23.82 64.6 1279.7 14 Jack Merrick ’26 13.02 33.0 1240.2 15 Helen Ansin ’26 18.15 29.8 809.7 16 Sophia Biss ’26 22.86 25.0 547.6 Physics teacher Paul Natland ’02 Oliver Duwin ’26, Zoe Burris ’26, Christopher Tsialas ’26
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