Pacific Southwest Regional Conference of the American Society of Civil Engineers

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, April 4, 2002

MEDIA ADVISORY

Concrete Canoe Race and Other Competitions to Test Students' Engineering Abilities

EVENT:

Pacific Southwest Regional Conference of the American Society of Civil Engineers

DATE:

Thursday, April 11 to Saturday, April 13, 2002

LOCATIONS:

The Henry Samueli School of Engineering, UC Irvine Newport Dunes Waterfront Resort, Newport Beach, Calif.

BACKGROUND:

The undergraduate student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) is hosting the annual regional meeting, which will draw students from more than a dozen campuses across California, Nevada, Hawaii and Arizona. More than 500 undergraduate engineering students are expected to attend. This year marks the 150th anniversary of ASCE, the nation's oldest engineering society.

The conference will feature competitions held at various locations around The Henry Samueli School of Engineering at UC Irvine and at the Newport Dunes Waterfront Resort. Scheduled competitions include:

Concrete Canoe - Student teams design, build and race a four-person canoe constructed out of concrete. The five scheduled races are a women's slalom, men's slalom, women's sprint, men's sprint and coed sprint. Race distances range from 100 meters to 600 meters.

Seismic Design - Students design and build a scaled model of an aesthetically pleasing multi-story or high-rise building able to withstand the forces and accelerations of a large-scale earthquake similar to the 1994 Northridge quake. Each structure will be tested on a 10' X 12' platform on the school's own Biaxial Seismic Simulator, or shaketable.

Steel Bridge - Student teams must beat the clock to design and build a model of a steel bridge. Judges will consider factors like construction speed, aesthetics, weight, construction economy and structural efficiency.
All winning teams go onto the national ASCE competition in June.

Additional events include: concrete frisbee, concrete bowling, impromptu design competition, land surveying competition, quiz bowl, volleyball, basketball, alumni basketball, tug-of-war and a "mystery" event. Details are available at www.eng.uci.edu/asceconference.

SCHEDULE:

Seismic Design Competition Competition - Friday, April 12, 2:00 p.m. Location: Structural Engineering Test Hall, UCI

Steel Bridge Competition: Practice - Thursday, April 11. Location: Irvine Marriott, 18000 Von Karman, Irvine, Calif. Competition - Friday, April 12, 8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. Location: Engineering Tower, UCI

A complete schedule of events is available at www.eng.uci.edu/asceconference.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE: A TOP-10 PUBLIC UNIVERSITY
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