Engineering students place first in concrete competition

A team of Construction Management and Civil Engineering Technology students from UNC Charlotte placed first in the 2019 ACI/ASCC Concrete Construction Competition, an international contest sponsored by the American Concrete Institute (ACI) and the American Society of Concrete Contractors (ASCC).

Team members were Ross Newsome, Benjamin Hager, George Poulos, Kenny Wang and Joseph Ocampo. Assistant Professor Tara Cavalline was the team’s mentor.

The concrete construction competition is open to all university, college and technical school undergraduate students in the United States and abroad. This year’s competition included preparing a bid for construction of concrete portions of a police station in a challenging construction setting–a high-altitude, mountainous rural environment on Navajo Nation land.

The Lee College of Engineering team presented its winning solution, which was a bid price that differed by only 2.4 percent from an expert’s estimate.

UNC Charlotte teams have been highly successful in this competition, winning three times (2013, 2015, and 2018) and placing third twice (2016 and 2017). Two University teams placed in the top 10 in 2014.