Student ASCE teams learn from experience to innovate for the future

The CEE at Illinois ASCE Student Teams finished off the 2024-25 school year with outstanding accomplishments at the ASCE Student Symposia. All teams improved on their previous year’s results and achieved top five rankings in this year’s Western Great Lakes Regional competitions in Milwaukee.

Sustainable Solutions

The ASCE Sustainable Solutions Competition challenges students to incorporate sustainable solutions into everyday problems that engineers may encounter. This year, teams were asked to develop a proposal to repurpose a commercial site to address shifting office demands following the COVID-19 pandemic. 

U of I is relatively new to participating in this challenge, with the first student chapter competing in 2024. The team however, has found a way to build success in a short time, finishing an impressive third place in the 2025 Regionals.

Concrete Canoe

Competing for over 52 years, the U of I Concrete Canoe Team has a storied history, reaching back to 1971 when they launched their first concrete canoes, becoming the birthplace of the competition.

After the team had a disappointing finish near the bottom of the leaderboard in 2024, four-year team veteran and captain, CEE Senior Nathan Stutzman, was ready to go back to the drawing board to assess where his team could make improvements. “The structure needed to be improved and I put a lot of emphasis on trying to fix that,” Stutzman explained.

But making improvements to the structure is a complicated goal, given the parameters for the competition change every year, and this year, there was a new focus on sustainability. “Cement is really unsustainable,” Team Mix Captain, CEE Senior Natalie Tran explained. “It creates a lot of CO2, lots of greenhouse gases, I believe it contributes about 4% of the worldwide CO2 production. So in this year’s competition they want us to do a 50/50 replacement with cement.”

Tran incorporated more alternative, sustainable, cementitious materials like fly ash from coal production, and silica fume and slag cement, from steel production. “It’s just a way to cut down our CO2 factor in our mix design,” she added.

 Another recent change to the competition is also impacting mix design. “Part of the competition actually now is you have to fill the canoe up with water, get it underwater and see if it’ll come back up,” Stutzman said. To meet this floatation requirement, Tran explained that they now have to get their density “a lot closer to that of water”.

After perfecting the mix, meticulously building the foam mold, and casting the canoe, the team was ready to make the trip to Milwaukee with their approximately 350 pound canoe. The paddlers, especially the women, led the way at regionals, taking first and second in women’s slalom and sprints. The team finished 3rd overall in the racing category.

 “Our women paddlers did amazing,” Stutzman cheered. “I am so proud of them!”

The team saw improvements in every category, and while they didn’t make it to nationals, Stutzman believes the fourth place overall finish showed significant progress in the right direction. “We learned a lot at the competition for next year and had immense improvement from last year!”

While both Stutzman and Tran are graduating, neither will be too far away. “Actually, next year I will be doing grad school here,” Stutzman said, studying structural engineering. He added that he is grateful for all that Concrete Canoe taught him outside the classroom and even plans to be a part of the team next year.

As for Tran, she will be applying her concrete knowledge to her transportation engineering job in downtown Chicago. “We still do a lot of pavement,” she explained, “especially in highways, and we use a lot of concrete there.” While she may not be back on campus right away, she says isn’t ruling out returning in the future. “I hope to be coming back at some point to do my PhD in materials of some sort of concrete.”

Steel Bridge

The annual Steel Bridge Competition challenges teams to design and construct a 1:10 scale model of a bridge. Teams are scored on the total overall cost of the bridge, based on materials, builders, barges, and construction time. Bridge aesthetics are also considered in the final competition results.

Student teams compete at the ASCE Regional Symposia, with U of I competing against 14 teams in their regionals. Team Captain Livia Bezati, a CEE senior, has been a part of the team for the last four years, and had plenty of ideas on how to improve upon last year’s 5th place finish. Her main focus: increase speed and improve economics, and finish in the top three in each of the scored categories – construction economy, construction speed, and lightness.

Their efforts paid off, placing third, second, and first in each respective category, and a third place overall, earning them a spot among the 40-45 teams competing at the  National Finals at Iowa State University on May 30.

The team held a demonstration in the Newmark Lab Crane Bay in early May, illustrating some of the adjustments they are addressing prior to Nationals.

They are looking to improve from their eight minute assembly time at regionals, and had already trimmed their time down to just over seven minutes at the demonstration. They are hoping to get even faster.

“We want to get our time under seven minutes at Nationals,” Bezati proclaimed.

Despite the bridge weighing only 180 pounds, and a projected third place at nationals, the team is aiming for a lighter and higher finish, continuing to slim down construction.

With Bezati graduating this year, the team is left in the capable hands of two juniors on the team that are already looking ahead to building upon their success next year. But first, they want a win in Ames, Iowa.