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Civil Engineering club competes in Portland
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These guys aren’t playing with Legos anymore.
The Boise State Civil Engineering Club traveled to the University of Portland to display two of its projects. Seventeen schools from the Northwest assembled for the steel bridge building competition and concrete canoe race April 24-25. Students applied their knowledge of civil engineering and worked as teams to complete a project, then present it to judges.
The steel bridge competition required contestants to construct a bridge to cross a small canal.
The Boise State team started the design process in September, working four to five hours at a time, generally two days a week to create something that met the given parameters.
“We were pretty much clueless when we started [but] we picked it up as we went along,” Ryan Camp, one of the team members, said.
In December the team was finally able to start building its bridge. At the competition it was judged on the speed of construction, weight, deflection (how much it sags under 2,500 lbs) and aesthetics. All of these factors were plugged into equations for efficiency to declare the winner. In 2007, Boise State’s team was disqualified because judges claimed to see the bridge shift when it was being loaded.
Boise State built its concrete canoe, Kraken, to competition specifications and entered it into five different races. BSU placed third in the men’s sprint and co-ed sprint races. Details of the design, a journal of the construction process and a Power Point presentation were judged as well. The team of seven started working on the craft in September, getting help from other Civil Engineering Club members.
“We built a Styrofoam mold, sprayed on a layer of concrete, and then put mesh around it,” club member Andrew Prince said. “After the mesh we sprayed on another layer of concrete then finished it with the coating.”
The Civil Engineering Club meets once a month and although many members are civil engineering majors, it is not required to join.
“Engineers aren’t known for socializing, so it’s a good way to meet other students,” Camp said. Meetings are held Tuesdays around lunchtime in the Engineering and Technology Building.
MATT ALMEIDA
Lead BizTech Writer
