Fun with concrete and bad water

More than 1,000 civil engineering students from 112 universities and colleges in North America, Turkey and Japan plan to gather this weekend at the university for concrete canoe races, high-speed bridge building and polluted water purification using only common kitchen items.

The American Society of Civil Engineers 150th Anniversary National Student Conference is a first-ever gathering of civil engineering students in celebration of the anniversary of the society’s founding.

The conference showcases student skills and ingenuity through a series of competitions including the 15th annual National Concrete Canoe Competition and the 11th annual National Student Steel Bridge Competition.

“Designing a canoe made mostly of concrete or purifying polluted water with household items is not much different then the everyday challenges these students will face as the future designers and builders of our infrastructure,” says ASCE official H. Gerard Schwartz, Jr. “Civil engineers are continually tasked with the responsibility of making the impossible possible for the betterment of society.”

With the world’s population expected to double by 2042, these students will be tasked with developing innovative civil engineering solutions to an increasingly overburdened infrastructure system.

They will be faced with supplying clean water, controlling pollution, and designing and building the transportation and public works system to support our growing world.

The National Concrete Canoe Competition brings more than 250 students from 25 of North America’s top civil engineering schools together in an event proving that engineers can make the impossible a reality – designing, building and racing canoes made primarily of concrete. Far from the floating bathtubs you might envision, canoes competing at the national level typically resemble fiberglass racing canoes and boast sophisticated designs aimed at achieving the best combination of speed and maneuverability.

The students achieve this effect by experimenting with admixtures such as latex, superplasticizers, fly ash and high-tech aggregates to develop extremely lightweight and super-strong concrete mixes.

Admixture supplier Master Builders, Inc. awards $9,000 in scholarship prizes to the top three overall ranking teams in the finals and provides funds to defray costs associated with traveling to and competing in the national event.

The National Student Steel Bridge Competition pits teams of young civil engineering students against each other and the clock, as they design and construct a bridge to span a river valley in a mountainous rural region. The competition brings together everything students learn in the classroom – ranging from design, fabrication and construction to fostering a teamwork environment. The bridge must support at least 2,500 pounds, the weight of an average car, with minimal deflection and cost. Prizes are awarded in seven areas including construction speed, lightness, stiffness, efficiency, economy, aesthetics and overall performance. The American Institute of Steel Construction is the lead sponsor of the event.

The Water Treatment Competition will be staged for the first time at the national level during the conference. Nine teams will use household items such as colanders, pots, cheese cloth and coffee filters to purify a sample of polluted water. Once the task is completed, students will seek a daring soul to taste-test the winning sample.

In addition to these three competitions, the students can also participate in an ethics paper competition, a balsa wood bridge building competition, a physical and mental challenge to test leadership developed by U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA), a surveying competition, a concrete bowling competition and a building competition using K’NEX pieces as the primary building material.

The conference is hosted by the UW–Madison ASCE Student Chapter and sponsored by ASCE, Master Builders, Inc. and the American Institute of Steel Construction, Inc.

Founded in 1852, ASCE represents 125,000 civil engineers worldwide and is America’s oldest national engineering society.