👷‍♂️ We Won a Golden Log, Judged a Bridge, and Angered Architects Again

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Hello Fellow Engineers!

Welcome to Real Civil Newsletter - the only newsletter where underground tunnels get more praise than skyscrapers, fan-made games come with undocumented behaviour, and bridges are judged solely on vibes and then immediately penalised for having any.

This week we’re celebrating beavers, giving away word games that refuse to use six letters, admiring infrastructure so invisible it’s basically allergic to architects, and reviewing a bridge that quietly wins without asking for attention.

There’s gravity-powered megacity hydration, unfinished games that feel suspiciously like real projects, and a dog with opinions.

Let’s dive into it 👇

What I’ve Been Up To…

THANK YOU!!! For voting for me to be your Timberborn creator of the year, we won the golden log and will officially get to name a beaver to be added to the game! As promised, my prize money will be donated to an animal charity close to where the developers are located. Read about the other winners here:

🏗️ Golden Log Awards 2025 Winners

🅱️ Five Letters Only – a word game about restraint, discipline, and absolutely refusing to add a sixth letter.

It’s clean, clever, and made by a viewer of the channel, which means it’s legally required to be supported.

Also: if you ever manage to spell BOOSH, something… happens. I won’t say what. Engineers love undocumented behaviour.

And yes - we’re doing it again 🥁
We’re giving away TEN copies of Five Letters Only, because supporting fan-made games is good, and giving away things is easier than writing documentation.

🎉 This week’s winners:
fer.seidl
filipvadan
gahoogenboom
gggogul
hectordtanner
heimdl27
hillstirling
ik8702pdo
j.adams.joshua
jackdiederich20

As always: submit a bridge in this email’s poll to enter future giveaways.
Words optional. Load paths mandatory.

👷‍♂️ Truss Me, I’m an Engineer…

This week’s project is so invisible, so competent, that most people using it every day have no idea it exists.

Which already tells you:
👉 engineers built it
👉 architects were not invited

Say hello to the Catskill Aqueduct , the reason New York City can function at all.

What is it?

New York City drinks over 1 billion gallons of water every single day.

The Catskill Aqueduct is a 190 km-long underground tunnel system that quietly delivers fresh mountain water from upstate New York to 9 million people, using almost nothing but gravity and stubborn engineering confidence.

Just water, moving downhill, because physics still works.

How engineers solved “water for a megacity”

Here’s what makes this ridiculou:

• Built starting in 1907

• Runs deep underground, passing beneath rivers, valleys, and towns

• In some places, drops over 300 metres below ground

• Moves water using gravity alone for most of its journey

• Supplies roughly 40% of NYC’s drinking water

At its lowest point, the tunnel passes beneath the Hudson River , because engineers saw a river and said “fine, we’ll go under it”.

Why this is god-tier engineering

• Operates 24/7 for over 100 years

• Supplies clean drinking water to one of the largest cities on Earth

• Uses gravity instead of energy wherever possible

• Was built before computers, lasers, or vibes

• Still outperforms modern systems

No dramatic angles or architecture.
Just millions of people alive and hydrated.

Which is, frankly, the highest compliment engineering can receive.

If you’ve got a project that’s buried underground, ignored by tourists, and quietly holding civilisation together - that’s the good stuff.
Send it in.

⚡ Cool Links

👩‍🔬 MIT turns recycled plastic into structural trusses that beat US housing load tests

🚣 An engineering breakthrough that could make ships nearly unsinkable

🧗‍♀️ PS5 Climbing Game Cairn Is the First Success Story of 2026

🤑 I became FILTHY RICH with my mega miners!

🐕‍🦺 Paddy’s Corner

The anticipation tail...

As one commenter said… “I love how heonly seems to do that helicopter tail when he wants you to throw his ball.”

👾 Indie Game of the Week:

Indie Game of the Week is Schematic Void - the “electronics puzzle” game that immediately collapses into forensic engineering because the developer simply… didn’t finish it.

I went in expecting tidy circuits and left unscrewing tutorials, rotating the entire UI, and fixing a dead pixel with a blob I earned by passing a cat CAPTCHA.

It’s basically what real projects feel like: the drawings look complete, the site isn’t, and somehow you’re holding a screwdriver wondering why there’s an egg.

👉 Watch it here: I thought it was a simple electronics game… I was WRONG!

It’s time for a Bridge Review!

This week’s bridge is the Woronora River Bridge (Sydney, Australia) , a 521m-long prestressed concrete box girder that looks like it was designed by someone who hates attention and loves load paths.

It was incrementally launched (built in segments and shoved out over the valley like a giant concrete printer), and when it opened it was the largest incrementally launched bridge in the Southern Hemisphere , with horizontal and vertical curves, because apparently engineers can’t leave well enough alone.
Also: it was launched down a 4.7% downhill grade, which is the civil engineering equivalent of pushing a shopping trolley down a hill and saying “don’t worry, I’ve modelled the friction.”

Architects will be devastated to hear there’s no pointless sculptural flourish, no “statement”, no glass, no vibes , just concrete doing its job and quietly winning.

Final Score: 9.3 / 10