Pictured above: 2022 Steel Bridge team members pose with bridge

Each year the American Society of Civil Engineers hosts two student competitions, the steel bridge competition and the concrete canoe competition. YSU students recently competed at the national level in both events.

The steel bridge competition includes 3 categories that affect overall score: construction time, deflection, and weight. Each of these categories is converted to a dollar amount and the bridge with the lost overall cost wins. After a 1st place finish at the regional competition in March, YSU steel bridge team members made their way to Virginia Tech for the national event at the end of May. A fabrication error unfortunately led to a lower placement than hoped, but the team still finished 7th out of 38 teams from across the country!

National team members included Raymond Kaso (captain/builder), Zachary Glavic (co-captain/builder), Kenneth Vigorito (builder), Jared Koenig (load test), Shane King (load test), Marshal Sarisky (load test) and Alex Hamilton (team member).

The Youngstown State University ASCE Student Chapter headed to Louisiana Tech in early June for their try at the National competition. Despite being an almost completely new team with only two returning members the YSU 2022 concrete canoe team placed 4th overall in the nation, beating big name schools such as New York University- Tandon and Texas A&M.

To get to that 4th place overall spot, the team competed in several areas: a project proposal; an enhanced focus area report; product prototype display; technical presentation and; of course, the canoe races! The paddling team exceeded past YSU finishes for men’s slalom, men’s sprint, coed sprint, and women’s sprint! 

The team spent many hours in the lab to make this 4th place finish possible and the best finish at an in person nationals for the history of the club. They would like to particularly thank faculty advisor, Dr. Anwarul Islam, and student advisors Adam Depizzo, Dan Phillips, and Tommy Carnes who helped make this unprecedented 4th place finish happen.
 

Pictured below: 2022 Concrete Canoe team members compete in the race