Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering

ISU receives 3rd place in PCI's Big Beam Contest

 

August 21, 2009
The Student Education Judging Committee selected the winners of the Engineering Student Design Award, also known as the Big Beam Contest. First-place winners from each of the six PCI zones, along with the international entries competed for the overall championship. CCEE/ISU team won the regional big beam contest champion and received 3rd place in the overall national championship.

PCI’s Student Education Committee (Pat Hynes, Chair) organizes the Big Beam Contest, and Sika Corp. sponsors it. The objective is for teams of students to fabricate and test a precast, prestressed concrete beam with the help of local precast concrete producer members. Prizes are awarded for the most efficient design, highest load capacity, best report, and other categories.

The overall winners and associated PCI Producer Members are listed below. Zone winners, outstanding report winners, innovative design winners, and the associated PCI and Canadian Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute producers will appear in the Fall 2009 PCI Journal.

Overall championship

First place: Oregon State University, Corvallis, Ore. (Zone 1)
Faculty advisor: Keith Kaufman
Student team: Jordan Bernhardt, Michael Craven, Tengfei Fu, Jake Goebel, Derek Manwill, and Ben Mealue
PCI producer: Knife River Corp., Harrisburg, Ore. (Dusty Andrews)
Award: $2000 and other prizes

Second place: University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Tex. (Zone 2)
Faculty advisor: Oguzhan Bayrak
Student team: James Foreman, Jeff Gauthier, Ashley Heidenreich, Amy Heilig, Nancy Larson, Stephen Pool, and Nicholas Richman
PCI producer: Coreslab Structures (TEXAS) Inc., Cedar Park, Tex. (Zachary Webb)
Award: $1750 and other prizes

Third place: Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa (Zone 3)
Faculty advisor: Sri Sritharan
Student team: Sriram R. Aaleti, Richard S. Henry, Aaron T. Shelman, and Zachary J. Thiemann
PCI producer: IPC Inc., Des Moines, Iowa (Jeff Butler)
Award: $1500 and other prizes

Fourth place: University of South Florida team 1, Tampa, Fla. (Zone 6)
Faculty advisor: Rajan Sen
Student team: James Barnes, Renee Garwood, William Lindecamp, Allen Overby, Jerome Panacci, Chak-Yin Szeto, and Matthew Trowbridge
PCI producer: Standard Concrete Products Inc., Tampa, Fla. (John Robertson)
Award: $1250 and other prizes

Fifth place: University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada (Zone 7)
Faculty advisor: Sreekanta Das
Student team: Joel Bertie, Carlo D'Alessandro, Steven Gardonio, Brandon Hayes, and Jay Leavoy
PCI producer: National Precast, Roseville, Mich. (Norm Presello)
Award: $1000 and other prizes

Sixth place: Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, Va. (Zone 5)
Faculty advisor: Benjamin Dymond
Student team: William Collins, Bernie Kassner, Andy Hardyniec, and Matthew Swenty
PCI producer: The Shockey Precast Group, Fredericksburg, Va. (Nicholas Comforter)
Award: $1000 and other prizes

Seventh place: Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wis. (Zone 4)
Faculty advisor: Baolin Wan
Student team: Daniel Stadig
PCI producer: The Spancrete Group, Waukesha, Wis. (Vern Coenen)
Award: $1000 and other prizes

Applications for the 2010 Big Beam Contest are due at PCI by March 15, 2010, and test reports are due by June 14, 2010. For information on this program, contact PCI’s education director, Alex Morales, at (312) 360-3219 or amorales@pci.org.

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