This article describes the 2006 Technology Education Collegiate Association (TECA) Eastern Regional elementary competition, wherein teams of technology education students from nine different universities designed and built cardboard chairs. The competition required the teams (four or five to a team) from universities up and down the East Coast to design and produce a functional cardboard chair. The chair needed to be strong enough to support a college student and designed using basic ergonomic principles. The competitors were to explain how the five forces that affect engineered structures were considered when designing and building their chairs. The five forces are: (1) compression; (2) tension; (3) bending; (4) shear; and (5) torsion. The finished products were all very impressive. Some were designed with function as the primary goal. These chairs were very solid and structurally sound. Some were designed to be first aesthetically pleasing, and second structurally sound. Some of these chairs did not withstand the rigorous testing. All of the technology education students who participated in the competition completed their chairs and left with another way to align technology education with elementary education. (Contains 1 figure.)