Rice's Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters (SSPEED) Center hosted 26 Houston-area high school students July 14, 2011 for a daylong event designed to introduce them to the real-world challenges engineers face. 

Rice's Jamie Padgett, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, led a 30-minute course on the basics of structural engineering for bridge design. At the end of the talk, the students were divided into five teams and challenged to build bridges using K'nex construction toys. Winners were chosen based on both the amount of weight the bridge held and the number of structural pieces used.