On Friday and Saturday, Mississippi State University hosted the American Society of Civil Engineers Deep South Conference.
Several competitions took place during the conference, including concrete bowling, surveying, concrete canoe races and the steel bridge competition.
Including MSU, 12 universities from the region participated in the competitions. The winners of the ASCE Deep South Conference concrete canoe and bridge competitions will compete in national competitions.
Martha Lack, senior civil and environmental engineering major, was this year’s conference chairman. Lack said the ASCE Deep South Conference is an important event for future engineers.
“After attending several conferences before this year, it was very exciting to be able to host the conference at Mississippi State,” Lack said. “This event brings future engineers together to interact through friendly competition and to learn from others. It’s an event that is always a great time.”
During the steel bridge competition, each team was timed and judged on how it constructed a bridge with several limitations. The bridges were then weighed and loaded.
Lack said the concrete canoe races were an interesting sight to see.
“We had men’s slalom races, women’s slalom races, men’s sprint races, women’s sprint races and then coed races,” Lack said. “The teams were judged on the results of the races and also on the canoes themselves.”
Ben Cox, senior civil engineering major, said ASCE set a theme and standards of dimensions for each team to abide by when constructing the canoes, but each team was able to choose its own materials.
“This year’s theme was sustainability,” Cox said. “So we chose materials like rice hulls and fiber glass beads.”
Cox said the team invested a lot of time in the construction of the canoe.
“It’s literally made out of concrete, and it is less dense than water,” Cox said. “We had to fill it up with water to make sure it would float. We ended up doing about 13 trial runs.”
In addition to being judged on the races and the canoe, each team had to submit a technical report on the steps it took in making the canoes, and each team had to give a presentation about the canoes they built.
A total of 10 canoes competed in the races. MSU finished first in the men’s sprint and coed sprint canoe races. In the final canoe scorings, Louisiana Tech University won first place, Louisiana State University placed second, Arkansas State University placed third and MSU placed fourth.