LA YMF cheers on students at PSWC 2018
ASCE LA YMF members came out to this year's PSWC to support our local ASCE student chapters. The competition was hosted at Arizona State University. Competition kicked off with the concrete canoe races held just north of the campus at Tempe Town Lake Marina. YMF members had a chance to talk to the students about their designs and asked them about the challenges of the competition. Each student chapter faced various problems and had to overcome them, whether it was regarding strength, speed, or weight for their canoe. One of the biggest factors of the races that day was the strong wind present at the marina. This resulted in a course modification for the races as the students were not able to navigate safely in the water since the course was too complex. Many canoes struggled to paddle through the wind as it would push against them, but each team persevered and finished their races. Congratulations to all the participating schools and a special shout out to University of Manoa Hawaii for making the trip to Arizona!
On the next day, Brian Phan of LADOT assisted with judging the steel bridge competition. We started the competition at 7:00 am with Cal State Northridge, one of ASCE LA YMF support universities, as the very first team up. As the competition progressed, the judges were amazed by the students design and commended the students for their engineering ingenuity. Unfortunately, the judges also had to disqualify a few schools for not being able to build or test their bridge in the given time limit. One of the toughest challenges faced in the steel bridge competition are the connections. Cal State LA, also one of ASCE LA YMF supported universities, stated that they tried to improve their connections this year knowing that it would be the best way to save time. Although many schools were able to pass their bridge to loading, they were very proud and excited to even participate at the competition and look forward to learning from their mistakes and getting better next year. We would like to thank all of the steel bridge judges, especially the head judges, Don Sepulveda and Jay Higgins.
The conference was a huge success and ASCE LA YMF had a great time time talking to all the student chapters. Thank you Arizona State University for hosting a wonderful conference and we are looking forward to PSWC 2019 at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
