“Concrete canoes,” steel bridge-building and “can-struction” competitions
Brigham Young University will host more than 330 civil engineering students from across the Rocky Mountain region April 2-4. While in Provo, the students will compete in a number of challenges, testing their engineering mettle, creativity, and their ability to work as a team.
The Rocky Mountain Regional Conference of the American Society of Civil Engineers will be hosted by the BYUSCE student chapter. This marks the first time the event has been hosted by BYU in nearly a decade.
In a seemingly impossible competition of engineering skills, the event will include a “concrete canoe” competition, a steel bridge-building challenge and “can-struction” competitions featuring building projects made entirely from canned foods. The canned goods used in the competition will be donated to local food banks. Last year more than 3,500 cans were collected.
The event will feature civil engineering students from 13 schools competing to show off their ingenuity and technical capabilities to the visiting professional engineers.
“Employers know about these competitions,” said Grant Farnsworth, a BYU student who is organizing this year’s conference. “When you go in to apply for a job, it gives you some common ground with the professionals because they remember having worked on similar projects while they were students. In my experience, these kinds of extracurricular activities can earn you a lot of respect from potential employers.”
The competitions are scheduled to take place on the BYU campus, with the exception of the concrete canoe competition, which will be held offsite at Utah Lake.
For more information, contact Grant Farnsworth at (801) 663-9985. A full schedule of events can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/rmc2009byu/calendar-of-events .
Writer: Nathan Casper
