On April 19-21, our four ASCE competition teams participated in the Mid-Pacific Regional Conference (Mid-Pac) at Sacramento State University. Approximately 100 students participated in the conference.
Berkeley competed in the water treatment, steel bridge, concrete canoe, and transportation competitions, as well as the Mead and water research paper competitions.
Berkeley placed in the top three in all competitions and took second place overall at the conference. See below for a breakdown of the results in all categories.
Environmental Team
The Environmental Team (Cal Enviro), led by Daryn Lee (CEE’19) and Alison Sim (CEE’19), finished third place. Enviro's challenge was to treat a given wastewater recipe containing potting soil, Bentonite clay, pineapple juice, Kool-Aid, and yogurt, that had sat covered for a day to potable standards.
Team members spent both semesters designing a filtration system that included a chemical treatment, making sure the filter was both cost-effective and easy to build.
At the competition, Elizabeth Rodriguez (CEE’18), the team’s operator, completed a flawless build, and Amanda Lee (CEE ’20) and Andrew Jin (EES ’19) made a great presentation. See Clean Water in only 20 minutes? Holy Cal!
Steel Bridge Team
The Steel Bridge Team, led by Project Manager Kaat Ceder (CEE ‘18), took second place overall.
Bridge spent all year designing and fabricating their 18’ long, single span bridge, Bearodynamic, which they are excited to take to their national competition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign over Memorial Day.
At Mid-Pac, the team placed first in both construction categories (speed and economy)—thanks to their lightning-fast build team! They will continue to improve in the weeks leading up to nationals. See Bearodynamic blasts off to Mid-Pac!
On to Illinois! Go Bears!
Concrete Canoe Team
The Concrete Canoe Team finished second overall. Led by Project Manager Erin Saiki (CEE ‘20), the team debuted their canoe, OptiCal Illusion.
On the first day of competition, Saiki, along with Assistant Project Manager Hagen Tam (CEE ‘20) and Mix Design Officer Angel Bravo (CEE ‘20) presented the team’s work to a panel of judges and fielded questions regarding the scheduling, structural analysis, and material properties of the canoe.
The following day, all canoes were put on display at Rancho Seco Lake. Berkeley's design, created by Graphics Officer Arianna Ninh (COG SCI ‘19), incorporated stunning illusions of acrylic and mirrors.
At the end of the day, the paddling team showed off their year of training, supported by cheers from all the teams, in a great showing of Berkeley pride. See Canoe Team's entry, OptiCal Illusion, to dazzle at Mid-Pac.
Transportation Team
The Transportation Team took second place in a transportation design competition. Their challenge was to propose a solution to a real-life problem involving the Sacramento Streetcar project.
The team, led by Project Manager Henry Hammel (CEE ‘18) and Deputy Project Manager Jasper Lee (CEE ‘19), completed over 100 pages of final design plans, traffic operations analysis and construction and cost estimation documents.
At the conference, Hammel and Operations Analysis Lead Marissa Milam presented new striping measures, transit-only lanes, switch tracks, new bike lanes, and signal phasing changes—all part of a safe, equitable, sustainable and efficient solution.
In only its second year of operation, a spinoff of the student chapter of Cal ITE, the Cal Transportation Team has recruited talent from a variety of campus majors, and has grown to 35+ members.
Daniel W. Mead Prize
Samantha Cristol took first place at the Mead Prize competition, responding to "How does the personal and professional use of social media relate to the ASCE Code of Ethics?"
She discussed how the ASCE Code of Ethics crosses the boundaries between moderating personal and professional life, due to the blurred line that accompanies the heightened demand for constant professional availability.
Samantha recommended that ASCE amends the code to be more clear in terms of the boundaries of ethical standards that they believe engineers should uphold. See Samantha Cristol takes first in Mead Paper competition at Mid-Pac.
All Results
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Overall Conference: 2nd
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Steel Bridge: 2nd Overall
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1st Construction Time
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1st Economy
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Concrete Canoe: 2nd Overall
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1st Design Paper
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2nd Final Product
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2nd Co-ed Race, Women's Sprint & Endurance
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2nd Oral Presentation
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3rd Men's endurance
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Environmental: 3rd Overall
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Transportation: 2nd Overall
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MEAD Paper: 1st
All teams at the 2018 Mid-Pac Awards dinner. Go Bears!