by Audrey Rappaport
12th Grade at Eleanor Roosevelt High School (Bowie, MD)
First Place
The sea serpent wound languidly around its tank. In open sunlight, the creature’s scales would be breathtaking, but even in the cold flourescent lights of the lab, Vietta stopped to stare for a second before getting out her notebook.
Prototype 5, she wrote. Red spikes added to cylindrical support.
She turned a crank, and a metal cylinder was lowered into a second tank from the ceiling. She waited until it was wedged into the hole at the bottom before turning a second crank, removing the dividing
wall between the two tanks. The serpent straightened out and circled around the prototype. It almost looked mirthful as it eyed the spikes jutting out from the metal, as if it were amused at this latest method Vietta had designed to prevent it from eating through. Vietta held her breath and started the timer.
She had modeled the red spikes after the body of a poisonous fish, hoping the resemblance would make the creature avoid the prototype entirely. The spikes had been sharpened to vicious points, so even if instinct wasn't enough, hopefully pain would dissuade the serpent from taking a bite.
The serpent kept circling. Vietta hadn't fed it in three days. Not long enough for any negative effects, but long enough for it to be hungry.
Then it began doing something Vietta had never seen it do before—it started nibbling on a spike. The sea-serpents usually behaved the way you'd expect from legends, all unhinged jaws and rows and rows of exposed teeth. The outer row could shoot a chemical that turned metal into an edible foam, and the other two, while they couldn't do anything nearly as inconvenient for bridge designers, could bite a human in half easily.
Vietta grabbed her notebook and began scribbling.
7:00 serpent began nibbling spike
7:30 attempted to move forward, got poked on side of face and retreated
15:00 began nibbling at a different spike
Twenty-eight minutes in, the creature had eaten enough of a bare patch around the metal that it could get at the core support. At thirty minutes, the structure collapsed, its fall elegantly slow in the water.
The creature made quick work of the remaining pieces while Vietta stopped the timer and sighed. She flipped back through her notebook. Her first prototype had fallen in 2 minutes, so there was no doubt her designs were improving. But the contest was only thirty days away. Even if Vietta could build prototypes as fast as her serpent could eat them, that would only give her 10 more tests.
When Vietta plotted the results, the trend at least looked slightly exponential. She would never use conclusions drawn from so few data points for any real science, but she wasn't above using them to inspire herself. “It's going to be okay,” she told herself. You're going to find out something the serpents will avoid for as long as it takes for your competitors to fall, and you are going to win.
Vietta stared out across the water to the twinkling lights of the mainland and tried to imagine what it would look like with a bridge spanning the distance. The old one had collapsed ten years ago, two years before Vietta had come to the island to study the behavior of sea serpents. Without an easy way to commute to the mainland, the island’s economy had suffered. Six months ago, the island’s mayor had finally decided enough was enough: a new bridge needed to be built, one that was completely resistant to the metal-eating creatures lurking in the water. In thirty days, a contest would be held, testing bridge prototypes in a watery arena full of hungry sea-serpents, and the designer of the bridge that lasted longest would be given a generous grant to continue development. Vietta pulled out her notebook and flipped through. Her designs were all based on the serpents’ instincts, disguising the supports as things they would naturally avoid. So far the spikes seemed most effective, but eventually the serpent had discovered that they weren’t really the spines of a poisonous fish.
Then it hit her. She had based the design off a fish common to the waters near the island. But the seaserpents weren’t native to shallow water. No one knew exactly what about the ecosystem had changed to allow them to migrate here, but normally, they lived farther south, where the channel opened up and became the sea. She should find a species native to their original habitat to mimic.
The day of the contest arrived. Vietta had gone with a design very similar to the old bridge. It had stood for nearly 50 years before the sea-serpents had come along—clearly, the design met every need besides one. In the end, Vietta had found a sub-species that had both red and orange spines, and had added spiralling tile designs on the supports that resembled the fish’s eyes. Two days ago, she had placed a test of this design in her tank, and so far, her serpent had given it a wide berth.
Vietta arrived at the arena before dawn. Each prototype was to be fifteen feet long and span a deep ditch that would soon be filled with water. Vietta had hired two people to assist in assembling hers, and they began unloading supplies from the bed of the truck they’d pulled up to the edge of Vietta’s plot. They worked in silence, shooting glances at the neighboring plots. Vietta pulled up the video feed of her lab on her phone. The serpent was still circling, slow and methodical. The support was untouched. Vietta smiled.
The competitors were announced one by one. Most were scientists or engineers from the island, but one woman had travelled from the mainland to compete. She and her bridge were both sturdy-looking and imposing. She met Vietta’s eyes with a cold stare. A pipe at the end of the arena was turned on, and the sound of water gushing into the arena nearly drowned out the rest of the announcer’s speech.
The contest started with the shrill sound of the judge’s whistle and a splash as ten serpents were unleashed into the water. It took three hours for the first bridge to fall. After that, they started going quickly, as if the serpents were spurred on by that initial success. When it started getting dark, only five bridges were left, Vietta’s included. So far, no serpent had tried to touch hers. She wanted to stay, but eventually night guards were posted and the competitors were ushered away. A feed streaming to the island’s official website was set up.
By the next morning, only two bridges were left: Vietta’s and the woman from the mainland. The arena was again opened to spectators, and Vietta joined the throngs of people in the stands. Huge screens had been set up, and they were currently broadcasting the profile of the other competitor: Freyja Orleston, a materials engineer who’d designed a coating that could resist the serpents’ saliva. Below, the arena was a study in contrasts. The water around Vietta’s bridge was calm, foreboding even. Vietta could barely see the supports of Freyja’s under the frantic thrashing of the serpents near it. They seemed to be trying their hardest to eat through, but whatever Freyja had done to the metal, it was doing its job.
Then one of the serpents was flung backwards from the frenzy. Its mouth caught on one of Vietta’s supports. It recoiled in pain, but not before dissolving a path through to the center with its saliva. The way cleared, it looped back around and attacked the metal, easily biting through in less than a minute. It was only one support, maybe it wouldn’t be fatal—
The buzzer sounded as the center of Vietta’s bridge sagged and then finally collapsed into the water. Vietta stared in disbelief. Had she really come this far just to lose? Freyja stepped up onto a raised platform, where the mayor stood waiting with a huge mock check. Freyja reached to shake the mayor’s hand—and then her bridge collapsed. The serpents had finally eaten through. Vietta had lost by mere minutes!
Vietta was cleaning up her lab when she heard the knock at the door. She found Freyja standing outside, impassive as ever.
“Come to gloat?” Vietta asked.
“Not at all,” Freyja responded. “You saw it too—my bridge fell almost as soon as yours did. After lasting for only two days. My anti-corrosion paint alone won’t be enough. The serpents will just keep attacking until they break through.”
Vietta raised an eyebrow. “What are you saying?”
“You know how the serpents behave. With our approaches combined, we’d have a real shot at designing a bridge safe enough to be really installed. I was wondering if you’re interested in working together. Splitting the grant money.”
Vietta grinned. “I think something could be arranged.”
Annotated Bibliography
Prestigious STEM competitions for high school students
Berlinsky-Schine, L. (2017).
If the bridge contest inspired you, consider entering one of these STEM contests offering monetary prizes for high school students.
Predators favour mimicry in a tropical reef fish.
Caley, M. J., & Schluter, D. (2003). Proceedings. Biological sciences, 270(1516), 667-72. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2002.2263
In this story, Vietta used the sea serpents' instinct to avoid poisonous fish to protect the supports of her bridge. This study used plastic replicas of a toxic puffer-fish for another purpose: to measure the "umbrella" of protection that known toxic species affords to similar-looking non-toxic mimic species.
SBIR Phase I: Protecting birds and bats from wind turbine hazards using ultraviolet light emitting diodes.
Lite Enterprises Inc. (2012).
This project is an example of working around animal instincts to solve a problem, as it aims to use birds and bats' sensitivity to UV light to create a UV-LED system warning them away from windmills. Funded by the US government's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, it shares similarities with the way Vietta and Freyja receive their funding (though competition for SBIR funds is much less entertaining).
Animals need infrastructure too
Holder, S. (2018).
This article discusses the construction of bridges and tunnels for animals to cross roads safely, leading to increased gene flow and less danger to cars on the roads. These need to be constructed with the instincts of the animals in mind to encourage them to use the infrastructure, much like how Vietta used the sea serpents' instincts to prevent them from attacking the supports.
Design guide for bridges for service life.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2013). (pp. 258-315). Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Chapter 7 discusses the real-life chemicals that quicken the corrosion of steel, such as chloride ions, as well as different methods that have been developed to prevent corrosion in the substructures (part that is below the water) of bridges. It contains very comprehensive flowcharts detailing the different protective coatings and corrosion-resistant materials available.