BlackboardASCE Southeast Student Conference Recap
In late March of this year, students from the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering ascended on the town of Cookeville, Tennessee to take part in the annual American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Southeast Student Conference. Armed with a concrete canoe, steel bridge, and various other engineering gadgets, 35 ASCE students were prepared to show off our college's skill in a meeting between 25 engineering schools. ASCE student chapters from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Puerto Rico and China participated in this year's conference competitions which are aimed to build leadership skills, apply classroom knowledge to solve engineering problems, and meet students from other universities in a fun, creative atmosphere.
The competitions challenge students in several civil engineering disciplines including geotechnical, environmental, surveying, transportation, hydrology, and hydraulics. The two most popular competitions, however, are the Concrete Canoe and Steel Bridge. Both of these competitions take a dedicated team months of planning and hundreds of hours of building.
The Concrete Canoe team's main objectives were to build an economical 20 foot long canoe from lightweight concrete that floated when completely submerged, incorporated recycled materials in concrete mix, and could hold four people during races. The concrete that they designed was less dense than water and was the only canoe to float without the use of foam inserts. The chapter won fourth place in canoe display and put on a solid performance in the canoe races. The canoe also survived a head on collision in which Auburn was not so fortunate.
The Steel Bridge team produced their finest bridge yet, the success of which can be attributed to the growing interest in the ASCE chapter, the recent addition of resources in the college's machine shop, and the fabrication help from Jeremy Phillips and John Rushing in the weld shop. This year's design was a 21-foot long, 3-foot wide cantilever bridge, designed to hold two loads: 1800 lbs on the main span and 800 lbs on the cantilever. Out of 23 bridges, the FAMU-FSU ASCE team had the third lightest bridge at 210 lbs totally assembled and an erection time of an astonishing 8 minutes. Unfortunately, the bridge exceeded a 1.5-inch deflection allowance by a mere 0.06 inches. Even with the extremely harsh penalties invoked, the bridge finished 15th overall.
With much excitement, the FAMU-FSU ASCE student chapter is making plans to host the upcoming 2012 ASCE Southeast Student Conference in March. An estimated 1000 students from the member schools will participate in over a dozen competitions over a 3-day period. The conference planning committee is currently preparing the competition rules and is seeking donations from corporate sponsors and alumni.
