UNLV engineering conference draws teams from across U.S.

April 12, 2010 by Leslie Ventura 

Engineers work together to build bridges, race canoes

UNLV co-hosted an engineering conference last week, bringing teams from 17 top universities to race student-designed concrete canoes in Las Vegas.

Part of the 2010 American Society of Civil Engineers Pacific Southwest Regional Conference, UNLV and Northern Arizona University hosted more than 1,000 student engineers from the region.

Students competed in multiple intellectually challenging, fun and even athletic events, hoping to advance to the national tournament.

“Southern Nevada is a virtual museum of modern infrastructure, so it only makes sense that we host this important conference,” said Senator Harry Reid in a letter to the American Society of Civil Engineers. “From the world famous Hoover Dam and the O’Callaghan-Tillman bridge, to… Lake Mead, Nevadans have a history of big ideas and projects.”

An environmental design challenge took place Thursday in the UNLV Engineering Complex while concrete canoes and steel bridges were displayed in the North Field.

The canoe project provided hands-on experience for engineering students interested in project management and concrete-mix design.

The UNLV team designed their canoe with the cooperative work of eight undergraduates and the development of the canoe took students more than 2,000 hours to complete. Participants had to ensure that the concrete mix was effective and that the design would be efficient during the race.

Made from many sustainable materials, the UNLV canoe measured 20 feet in length and weighed in at 200 pounds.

Teams were judged on the race, aesthetics of the canoe, a technical paper and a technical presentation.

“This is… a great opportunity to show off our campus, which is a rapidly growing university that has top-notch faculty and students,” said ASCE faculty advisor Thomas Piechota.

Teams raced their canoes at Lake Mead on Friday, hoping to be one of the three teams that will advance to the national tournament.

Teams competing in the steel bridge competition built a functional one-tenth scale model of a steel bridge and were judged on the speed of assembly, display and weight as well as its ability to withstand weight. Bridges were intended to withstand at least 2,500 pounds.

Malorie Teich from the University of Arizona was excited and pleased with her team’s performance on the steel bridge project.

“We had to build it here and test it out,” Teich said, “[but] we’re pretty excited [because] this is actually the first time we tested it out and it went perfect.”

Students also participated in a number of sporting events like basketball, dodgeball, volleyball, soccer, a scavenger hunt and tug of war.

Alicia Welling, a freshman at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, participated in Tug of War and an impromptu event at the beginning of the conference.

“This is our first conference here,” Welling said. “There’s a bunch of sports and things just for fun.”

Welling and her team added that the best part of the conference was getting to compete in something outside of school.

“I think it’s really cool to get all of us involved in more than classroom stuff.”