Students from all over the Midwest will travel to Rolla to take part in the American Society of Civil Engineers Mid-America Student Symposium — and if you’re in the habit of fishing at Little Prairie Lake, you may run into a few of them.

The ASCE Mid-America Student Symposium will take place April 18-20 on the Missouri University of Science and Technology campus in Rolla. Missouri S&T is cohosting the symposium with Missouri State University. The symposium will feature several contests, including the Concrete Canoe Competition and Steel Bridge Competition.

The Concrete Canoe Competition will take place Friday, April 19, at Little Prairie Lake. Students will set up their canoes for display at 8 a.m., with races beginning at 10 a.m. Student teams from 12 universities will compete, including Missouri S&T’s Concrete Canoe Design Team with their new canoe named “Andromeda.” The canoes (and their rowers) will be tested in sprint races and a slalom course. Teams will be judged on their race performance, as well as their project proposal, final prototype and a technical presentation.

The Steel Bridge Competition will take place Saturday, April 20, in the lower gym of the Gale Bullman Building on the Missouri S&T campus. From 10 a.m. to 1:40 p.m. student teams will compete to assemble their bridge in the fastest time, with the fewest errors.

Bridges will be judged on their aesthetics, lightness, stiffness and cost efficiency, in addition to overall performance and construction speed. Missouri S&T’s Steel Bridge Design Team will start building their bridge at 1:20 p.m. Team members hope to win their sixth consecutive regional competition this year.

Other competitions that will be part of the symposium include:

• Utility Engineering and Surveying Institute Surveying Competition: Students will perform both field and office surveying tasks, including topographic mapping, a construction stakeout and determining the depth of a proposed sewer line.
• Sustainable Solutions Competition: Students will be challenged to incorporate sustainability principles into their proposals for a hypothetical waterfront redevelopment project.
• 3D Printing Competition: Students will present 3D-printed bridge designs, which will be judged on assembly time, geometric requirements and strength requirements.
• Student Symposium Paper Competition: Students will present their papers on this year’s topic, ethical concerns regarding the use of AI in engineering work. This competition emphasizes the importance of communication skills for all engineers, and each university must have at least one student presenting to participate in the symposium.

About Missouri University of Science and Technology

Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) is a STEM-focused research university of over 7,000 students located in Rolla, Missouri. Part of the four-campus University of Missouri System, Missouri S&T offers over 100 degrees in 40 areas of study and is among the nation’s top public universities for salary impact, according to the Wall Street Journal. For more information about Missouri S&T, visit www.mst.edu.