Charlotte ASCE takes top honors at regional competition

UNC Charlotte’s American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) chapter won 10 awards at the 2024 Carolinas ASCE Student Symposium.

Charlotte’s chapter placed No. 1 in the Concrete Canoe, Steel Bridge and Sustainable Solutions competitions, No. 2 in the Surveying competition and No. 2 overall out of the nine competing universities.

The ASCE Student Symposium is a three-day regional event for civil engineering students in the Carolinas. Featured events include a career networking expo, team presentations and student competitions. UNC Charlotte hosted this year’s symposium from April 4-6, with a “Building Rome” theme.

Charlotte’s first-place national teams have advanced to the 2024 ASCE Civil Engineering Student Championships, which will be held at Brigham Young University from June 19 to 22 and include Concrete Canoe, Steel Bridge, Surveying and Sustainable Solutions challenges. 

In the Concrete Canoe competition, “We got first place in aesthetics, first place in the technical presentation, first place in the proposal, first place in two out of the five races and second place in those other three,” said Shawn Sizemore, sponsorship and fundraiser chair for ASCE.

In addition to Concrete Canoe, Charlotte placed first in all categories of the Steel Bridge competition and first in the Sustainable Solutions competition.

Preparation for the competition took multiple months, which helped result in Charlotte’s winning position.

The hosting board ensured everything ran smoothly over the weekend and that all visiting students, faculty, volunteers and companies were able to have a satisfactory experience.

“The local competitions, the students came up with the rules for them,” said Erika Weber, faculty advisor of ASCE. “With both local and national competitions, they had to find the judges looking for student volunteers to help run each of these events. Besides the events, there’s also the food that they were planning with this and an awards banquet at the end and a social at the beginning.”

Despite extensive preparations last year, problems arose with the concrete canoe. “Last year, our canoe broke in half,” said Luke Bender, vice president of Charlotte’s ASCE student chapter. “We were driving from our hotel to the lake during last year’s competition in Charleston, South Carolina, and it broke in half, and pretty much since that moment, we’ve been preparing for this year.”

The competitions offer students both opportunities and benefits. Students can develop project management, problem-solving, teamwork, leadership and technical skills. 

More information about the ASCE student chapter at UNC Charlotte can be found on their website or Instagram, @uncc_asce.