Engineers hold off heavy competition

For the second year in a row, Norwich's civil engineering department has placedin the top among students from Canada, Mexico, and the United States in what is called the "Big Beam Competition."

Engineering students competed for a chance to win more than $2,000 in prizes in this national engineering competition.

Students "designed the most economical and practical concrete beam according to certain dimensions given by the PCI competition," said Seth Knihtila, a 21-year-old senior civil engineering major from Westminster, Mass.

"Students were required to design, construct and then test a concrete beam (that) was required to hold at least 32,000 pounds," said civil engineering professor Edwin Schmeckpeper.

According to Schmeckpeper, students must build a bridge that can hold a certain weight capacity. The closer thye come to the exact breaking point the better, he said.

"If you held more than 45,000 pounds you got penalized. So you had a range you were shooting for," Schmeckpeper said. "If you held below the minimum number you were disqualified. If you held more then the maximum number you got penalized."

"The bridge is judged not only on the hold capacity and dimensions of the concrete bridge," said Logan Bessette, a 22-year-old senior engineering major from New Haven, Vt., "it is also judged on a written portion as well."

"You must design the most economical and practical beam," said Knihtila

According to Schmeckpeper, students have to do a written report of their calculations before they can start building to ensure that no one changes their project mid-way.

According to the participating students, when testing the beam they have to make a video recording of: the testing, original design, calculations to support the design, and the report describing their rational. The students must also compare their test results to their predictions.

"The predictions are a very important part of the competition," said Schmeckpeper. "You have to submit the predictions before your testing. You have to have an engineer from the concrete plant where you had the beam poured sign off."

Norwich students sought help from JP Carrara, in Middlebury, Vt. "They help you out and look at it from the actual real production point of view," Bessette said.

Schmeckpeper was very impressed with the students finishing first place in their region, beating out schools such as Clarkson, RPI and West Point.

"The winners of the other regions, like Oregon State, were not exactly the same size as Norwich," said Schmeckpeper. "In addition, a lot of the other regions' teams were principally composed of grad students rather than seniors and juniors"

Because the Norwich graduate program is distance learning, its students aren't on campus.  The competition is run entirely by undergraduates.

"(The students) would ask the engineers and the technicians who work at JP Carrara for guidance, but our students were the ones who did all of the work, no help from alumni," Schmeckpeper said.

Not only do the engineering students gain experience, they also can win money. According to students, the money helps fund other engineering projects.

"(In 2010) we got third in the nation and got $2,000," Knihtila said.

"We put all the money back into the chapter to fund other projects," Bessette said.

According to students, the competitions are run through the student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers and are completely separate from class.

Said Schmeckpeper, "It's like compressing a three-credit class into about a month."

Competitors are given the rules in the early fall. They submit their results by the beginning of June.

In addition to six months of creating the specifications of the project, the students spend a month prior, learning about the material itself.

The students then have to be re-taught how to test the beam by Schmeckpeper, and due to the extreme size of the beam, many safety precautions must be made.

"You really have to be careful when testing the beam," said Schmeckpeper. "It's big enough that if you drop it on your foot it's going to hurt and you are going to have a different shoe size the rest of your life."