The ATAS Monsters of Metal Canstruction team recently received the Best Meal award and the Best Design award (also known as “Juror’s Favorite”) in the recent Canstruction Lehigh Valley competition.

One of seven teams building Cansculptures this year in the Lehigh Valley, team members consisted of ATAS employees and the Architectural Studio. This year’s theme was “Comic-Can,” and teams were challenged to build structures related to comic book characters.

The Monsters of Metal created an eight-foot tall Batman comic book for their Cansculpture. The front and back covers of the comic book portrayed the team name and Batman image. Inside the comic book, the Bat Signal was projected over Gotham City, alongside the Batmobile emerging from the Bat Cave. The Cansculpture incorporated several varieties of vegetables and beans, along with Vienna sausages, tomato sauce and olives, to create a colorful, as well as nourishing, display. 6,624 cans were used to create the structure. A time-lapse video of the ATAS Canstruction build can be viewed at www.atas.com/videos

The jury for the competition consisted of community leaders, including Whitehall Mayor Ed Hozza, Second Harvest Food Bank Director Jessica Dokachev, Lehigh Valley Mall Manager John Ferreira, and Architect Steve Glickman.

This is the third year that ATAS has participated in this event; they have been involved since its inception in 2015. New Tripoli Bank was a sponsor of the Monsters of Metal team this year. John Hayes and Michele Hunsicker of New Tripoli Bank attended the awards ceremony, held at Second Harvest Food Bank on October 24, to support the ATAS team and to help them celebrate.

The seven teams competing used 41,027 cans, an 8 percent increase over 2016, and a 7 percent increase over 2015. Nearly 51,000 pounds of food were donated from this year’s event (at a value of approximately $36,000) to Second Harvest Food Bank.