All posts by Nick Halsey

Pour Day 2014

Our 2014 Pour Day for Concrete Canoe went well, with three layers of concrete and two layers of carbon fiber grid reinforcement going into our homemade mold in about ten hours of work. Roughly fifteen members helped out including a few dedicated non-canoe-team helpers. We finished off the bulkheads, so the only remaining concrete placement will be for the edges and any patches.

2014 Workshop for Student Chapter Leaders

Four USC ASCE members attended ASCE’s 2014 Workshop for Student Chapter Leaders – Regions 8 & 9 (WSCL) this past weekend in Phoenix, AZ. WSCL is designed to give current and future chapter officers training, while facilitating networking opportunities with other students and professionals, allowing good ideas to be shared between schools.

The main conference room where most sessions were held
The main conference room where most sessions were held.

Conference sessions covered topics from presenting each university’s successes and challenges to discussing how to better connect students from different universities to an overview of the new format for next year’s annual report.

Networking Reception at the end of the first day.
Networking Reception at the end of the first day.

Networking was also a critical component of WSCL. Making connections with other students and with Civil and Environmental Engineering Professionals from ASCE Younger Member Groups and ASCE Section and Branch leaders is important for a variety of reasons. Ideas within and outside of ASCE can be shared, friendships can be formed, and potential career opportunities can be created.

USC ASCE Members with ASCE President-Elect Robert Stevens
USC ASCE Members with ASCE President-Elect Robert Stevens

In addition to the student-focused sessions, several events were held with the younger members and section and branch leaders, whose conferences occurred simultaneously. Highlights included several networking events (including meals!), a speech by ASCE President-Elect Robert Stevens, and a Q & A session with ASCE’s President, past President, and President-Elect.

One last picture with Phil the Philanthropist before we gave him back to the ASCE Foundation.
One last picture with Phil the Philanthropist before we gave him back to the ASCE Foundation.

Overall, WSCL was a great experience where we made new connections and formed new and exciting ideas for USC ASCE. If you’re at all interested in a leadership role at USC ASCE, get excited for WSCL 2015 in Seattle, WA!

PSWC 2014 Planning Underway

Our USC ASCE team for PSWC 2014 has been finalized. We’ll be bringing 43 of our members to San Diego State University from April 2-6 to compete against 17 other universities in concrete canoesteel bridgeenvironmentalgeotechnical, surveying, technical paper, concrete bowling, scavenger hunt, sports teams, and several other events.

We’re finalizing details of our travel plans now, while also organizing the smaller competition teams. Once we have all of individual schedules and teams filled out, team captains will coordinate meetings/practices to prepare for victory!

Our design teams can always use more help to design and build the concrete canoesteel bridgewater treatment system, and geowall. Even if you aren’t attending PSWC this year, you can make a big impact on our teams and help propel them to win!

Check out our calendars for updates on all of our meeting times and info for getting involved!

Concrete Canoe Showcase

The Concrete Canoe Team has just launched a new showcase website for our Concrete Canoe! The site features a concise summary of each year’s canoe going back to 2011, including key pictures, the design paper, PSWC results, and more.

Now that 2014 is almost upon us we need your help to finish designing and to build our next canoe. If you’re interested in canoe email canoe@uscasce.com for more info on how to get involved!

Website Redesign

We’ve launched a visual redesign of our website, addressing several concerns about our site’s usability that came up in our Fall 2013 survey.

Previously, we used a custom child theme of the Twenty Thirteen WordPress theme. Now,  we’re using Twenty Fourteen, with the Fourteen Colors plugin.

The new design features images more prominently and boldly (see the design team pages, for example, Concrete Canoe). It’s higher contrast and more readable. And most importantly, it provides several tools for us to highlight the most important content, for example, through the new sidebar on the left of the screen.

Continuing our commitment to open source software, I contributed heavily to the development of Twenty Fourteen, so that we could make it better for both our uses at USC ASCE, and for thousands of other sites worldwide.

We hope you like our new design!

Previously: