Historic year for UB ASCE teams

By Peter Murphy

The UB American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) steel bridge and concrete canoe teams earned first place in each of their regional competitions for the first time in club history. Their momentum continued later this summer when they both finished inside of the top 10 at their national competitions.

The steel bridge team finished third in the American Institute of Steel Construction’s national Student Steel Bridge Competition at the University of California, San Diego. This is the best finish in history for the UB ASCE steel bridge team.

“Finishing third in the nation means a lot to me and it shows that hard work does pay off,” says Dylan Leddy, a recent graduate who is enrolled in the civil engineering master’s program for fall 2023 and one of the team’s project managers. “We drove the bridge across the country to the competition in San Diego. This hardworking team deserves its spot in the top after putting in thousands of person hours on these projects.”

UB ASCE’s concrete canoe team finished ninth in the national Concrete Canoe Competition at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. According to Meghan Pauley, concrete canoe project team manager and recent civil engineering graduate, the team made steady improvements.

“Our goal for the entire year was to make it to the national competition and place within the top 10, which we were able to accomplish,” says Pauley. “We focused on improving our paddling skills to keep us nationally competitive, so we would go out onto Lake LaSalle a few days every week to get down our sprint and slalom times.”

Their hard work paid off. The team finished fifth in both the coed sprint and men’s slalom races.

The UB ASCE club hosted this year’s Upstate New York-Canada ASCE Student Symposium on UB’s campus from April 20–22. Nine teams from eight states and Canadian provinces came to UB to compete in a variety of events. In addition to inviting mentors, conducting professional workshops, and managing other responsibilities, the club had to plan the symposium while competing in the seismic design, concrete canoe and steel bridge competitions.

Sean Crowell, senior civil engineering student, and Josh Cardamone, junior civil engineering student, served as the conference chairs. They began planning the symposium last spring.

“At the end of August, we began having regular meetings with our student planning committee every two weeks to review what had been accomplished and what new tasks needed to be completed,” Cardamone says.

“Our biggest takeaway was seeing all the work that goes into hosting something on this scale,” Crowell says. “There were so many little things that needed to be considered throughout this entire process that we never would have considered.