ASCE - Creating a Tradition in Excellence

Come enjoy a night of fun at the

Akron Aeros game for the July ASCE Parent

Chapter/Student Chapter meeting.

Your Student Chapter is Hosting

which means it’ll be a great time!

When: Thursday July 16^th, 2009

We will be having a cookout at the AES

Parking Lot at 5:00pm - free for all students

The Aeros’ game begins at 7:05 PM at

Canal Park against the Bowie Baysox!

(Tickets are $9.00)

RSVP to Justin Arnold - jwa5@uakron.edu

By noon on July 9th.

Our UA Steel Bridge team competed in the 2009 ASCE/AISC Nationals held at the Thomas and Mack Center at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The competition was held during the weekend of May 22^nd-23^rd. We competed against 47 teams from around the country in 6 different categories—these being: Construction speed, lightness, stiffness, construction economy, structural efficiency, and display.

In construction speed we placed 6^th with the time of 5.02 minutes. In lightness we placed 24^th with our bridge weighing in at 202.0 lbs. We placed 7^th in stiffness with an aggregate deflection of 0.38 inches. Construction economy is based on the number of builders (we had 4) multiplied by construction time plus any penalties (we had none), plus one temporary pier used during construction (+ $50,000). In this category we received 6^th place with a cost of $1,053,333. Our score for structural efficiency, which is based on aggregate deflection and weight we placed 15^th with a cost of $1,276,000. In display, which is used to break a tie, we placed 17^th.

Overall we placed 9^th in the competition with a cost of $2,329,333. We are proud to have placed in the top ten and are already thinking about next year’s Regional’s at the University of Kentucky and going on to Nationals at Purdue University.

The UA Steel Team would like to send a special thank you out to all of our
sponsors and supporters!

Akron/Canton Chapter

Congratulations to the new officers!!!!!

The elections took place earlier today and the results are as follows. These positions are for the 2009-2010 school year.

President - Justin Arnold

VP - Alex Maistros

Treasurer - Dan Lorenz

Secretary - Ellen Bauman

Publicist - Sarah Sullivan

RCCC - Lauren Skufca

Webmaster - Eric Hilty

Photographer - Thomas Weiss

Our student chapter of the ASCE conducted an unveiling of their Steel Bridge, Concrete Canoe, and Disk Golf on May 4^th, outside of Auburn Science and Engineering Center. For this we invited our sponsors, our faculty, our families, and all students to come view all the hard work that went into all three of these teams throughout the year.

Steel bridge team to compete on national stage; Susann Schmitt

Issue date: 4/14/09 Section: News

University of Akron's steel bridge team recently won first place in the regional competition, which was held on April 4 in Western Kentucky.

Akron's steel bridge team consists of civil engineers who are part of the engineering program. The team consists of 21 team members, including team captain, Michael Clements.

The team placed first in six out of the seven categories they were judged on. The regional competition is the first that Akron has competed in since starting in August. Akron's team competed against 12 other teams of whom, Youngstown took second place and Geneva College took third place. Some other teams that they compete against are Ohio State, Ohio University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Kentucky, Western Kentucky and the University of Cincinnati.

By winning the regional competition, UA's steel bridge team will have the chance to compete at Nationals in Las Vegas on May 22-23, joined by Youngstown and Geneva College. Over the past couple years; Akron's biggest competition has been Youngstown and Western Kentucky.

This year the team ranges from freshmen to seniors. Michael Frabotta, a junior and member of the winning team who competed at regionals, says "We get a set of rules from the competition and design a bridge based on the rules. We build it out of steel and no piece is bigger than three feet. The time limit is 45 minutes."

The team uses a high-tech computer program that allows them to grasp the spacing and analysis of the bridge.

Frabotta explains, "We get judged on how much the bridge weighs, the stiffness of the bridge (how much it deflects), how fast we put it together and how the bridge looks (aesthetics)." Frabotta believes the most important criteria for judging are Construction economy and structural efficiency.

He says, "construction economy is how many people built it and how long it took, and structural efficiency is the stiffness and weight of the bridge."

Frabotta believes that the team's biggest obstacle to overcome in order to win nationals will be the fact that they are not as experienced as other teams who will be competiting. This is Akron's first year heading to the national competition, and a couple of other schools have won two or three times in a row. "Our biggest obstacle is that we will be going in blindfolded," Frabotta said.

"Although this is not as big of a deal as winning a football or basketball national championship, we get bragging rights and it helps the College of Engineering, by making the school and engineering program look better," Frabotta said. He also believes that if the team wins, more students may want to join the team.

In Frabotta's opinion, he believes the greatest benefit that comes from competing in an extracurricular activity such as this one is experience.

"We learn computer programs that will help us in our careers, and we also are able to get our hands dirty and build bridges," he says.

Other schools get credit hours for participating in steel bridge competitions, but University of Akron students get no credits for doing this. Although they have a faculty advisor, it is basically 100% student-run, according to Frabotta.