Steel Bridge/Concrete Canoe teams take first, advance to nationals

Youngstown State University’s American Society of Civil Engineers Student Chapter claimed the Concrete Canoe and Steel Bridge Championships at the recent Ohio Valley Student Conference at Ohio University. YSU was also named the OVSC 2018 Conference Champion.

This is the first time that teams from YSU have taken first in both Concrete Canoe and Steel Bridge in the same year.

With the wins, the teams move on to compete at the national level. The Steel Bridge team will compete May 25-26 at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Concrete Canoe team will compete June 23-25 at San Diego State University in San Diego, California.

The competitions included teams representing 15 schools from Ohio, Kentucky and Western Pennsylvania including Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Cincinnati, the University of Pittsburgh and the Ohio State University.

The Concrete Canoe competition requires teams to use engineering skills to design and construct a seaworthy canoe made entirely of concrete. Each team must compete in four categories: Design Paper, Oral Presentation, Final Product and several racing events.

The Steel Bridge Competition involves the design, fabrication, construction, and testing of a 21-22 foot steel structure which meets specifications set by ASCE and the American Institute of Steel Construction each year. At the competition, the bridge is judged on the following six criteria: construction speed, lightness, stiffness, economy, efficiency and aesthetics. YSU took first place in five of the six.

Team members are: Kenny Anderson, Tommy Carnes, Emma Daugherty, Spencer DeSalvo, Colton Hamilton, Montana Gessler, William Graham, Jeremy Large, Greg Lipp, Nicholas Martin, Mike Palagano and Luis Vindel. Anwarul Islam, professor and chair of Civil, Environmental and Chemical Engineering, is the team’s faculty adviser.