Trine teams compete at annual ASCE Symposium

NOTRE DAME, Ind. — Students and faculty from Trine University’s Reiners Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering traveled to the University of Notre Dame for the annual American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Indiana-Kentucky Student Symposium, with two Trine teams finishing in the top three of their respective events.

The university placed second in the 3D-printed bridge competition and third in surveying.

Trine teams also participated in balsa bridge, mystery design, construction institute, Mead Paper, trivia and concrete cornhole competitions.

The Symposium was held April 3-5. Eleven Trine students participated along with faculty members Tim Tyler, Ph.D., professor, and TJ Murphy, assistant professor.

3D-printed bridge

In the 3D-printed bridge competition, students designed and printed bridge components that had to be assembled for the competition.

Bridge pieces had to fit inside an 8.7-by-8.7-by-6.5-inch box, with the assembled structure spanning a 20-inch gap.

Teams were judged on the time to assemble the bridge, load capacity and efficiency, defined as the load carried divided by the bridge’s weight.

Luke Weintz, from Fairfield, Ohio, said he chose the event because he has been interested in 3D printing since he learned how to do it in high school.

“I had the opportunity to work with (department chair) Dr. Gary Greene on this project, and it was a great opportunity to learn a lot of new skills,” he said.

Weintz and his teammate, Derek Maag of Ottawa, Ohio, spent a couple of months designing 3D-printed beams of various sizes and designs.

Their final product had the highest strength-to-weight ratio, holding 70 pounds while weighing just under 300 grams, and the best vertical stiffness, bending only 0.085 inch downward while holding 25 pounds.

“I'm very proud of how we did and already have plans to improve the design next year,” Weintz said.

Surveying

Weintz also was part of the surveying team, along with Evan Seacatt of Miamisburg, Ohio, Dillan Cooper of Seymour, Indiana, and Blake Dulle of Edon, Ohio.

“I took a surveying course in the fall semester and really enjoyed it. I think that this was a great opportunity to further the skills I learned in the classroom,” Weintz said.

In the surveying competition, students gave a presentation about a topographic map they developed prior to the symposium.

“The process was to add our data points and create the surface with proper color gradients, triangular irregular networks and labeled features,” Dulle said. “We redesigned last year's plans for a new layout with legends and a title page to create plans as professional as possible.”

They also completed four surveying tasks in the field the day of the competition.

“We decided to complete the easier events first, which were differential leveling and pacing. We applied concepts learned in lab to complete both,” Dulle said. “Finding a sewer cut along a centerline offset was a bit of a conceptual challenge. We set up near the middle of the sewer, measured the height of our instrument from a known benchmark, and found all elevations of stakes along the sewer.”

“The construction layout was the most difficult. We used an established reference line to measure angle offsets from said line and distances to our starting point and we did the same with a second point. From our starting point we finished placing iron pins for corners of the proposed structure.”

“Dillan Cooper was the star of the construction layout event, with a great way to calculate the needed angles,” he added.

Foundation for the future

Annalise O'Daniel, an Indianapolis student who is president of Trine’s student chapter of ASCE, said she was glad to see the teams experience success and enjoy being part of the Symposium.

“Seeing the students get excited and have such a great time really made it all worth it,” she said. “Since we had a majority of underclassmen students this year, I think this event has sparked excitement for next year and years to come.”

Dulle agreed, “The symposium is a great experience, and I hope all current and future civil engineers would be interested in experiencing it in person.”