We’re all working hard to get everything ready for PSWC 2015. Our Concrete Canoe, Steel Bridge, Geotechnical, Dog House, and Concrete Bowling teams are all putting in long hours today in the KAP Basement, and everyone’s super excited for conference!
Painting the dog house, steel bridge, and transportation poster stands.
Our concrete bowling team created a Wilson-themed bowling ball, only to discover that two other schools had the same theme. Next year we’ll be more creative! It bowled well, resulting in a respectable showing.
2014 Concrete Bowling Team
Preparing to throw the concrete bowling ball.
The bowling lane. It was slightly uphill.
A successful first throw.
Rolling the ball, made difficult by the lack of finger holes.
Tedman throws the ball.
Kelvin lines up his throw.
Concrete bowling throw windup.
It looks like he’s going to give it a nice gentle roll, but that won’t work.
A bouncing approach to concrete bowling.
Another successful throw!
Last official throw.
Non-bowling team members had a lot more trouble – guess the practice worked!
Some of us have more acrobatic concrete bowling techniques than others.
The final day of PSWC 2013 included the Steel Bridge competition, the Geotechnical competition, Concrete Bowling and Horseshoes, the Soccer tournament, and the award ceremony.
Steel bridge photos are by Lance Hill.
The first competition of the days was concrete bowling/horseshoes.
We were disqualified from bowling because we didn’t know there was a weight limit, and we didn’t have enough team members anyway, so we headed over to the horseshoes event.
We won one point in horseshoes, with only one concrete horseshoe breaking, beating our direct opponents 1-0!
Meanwhile, the steel bridge competition was beginning at Pardee Plaza
The steel bridge team talks with the judges.
The team strategizes
The clock starts!
The team assembles the bridge.
Another view of bridge assembly,
Final assembly.
Judges evaluate our work.
Our cheering section!
The team adds the load to the bridge
loading the bridge
loading the bridge
loading the bridge
loading the bridge
The bridge is evaluated, with Mudd Hall in the background
Our bridge team captains discuss the competition
the team rests during judging
The bridge team poses in front of Mudd Hall
Team members pose on the bridge
Meanwhile, the Geotechnical design competition occurred at e-quad.
Our team prepares for competition.
Since we were hosting, several USC ASCE members were recruited to aid in judging.
Our team prepares to cut up their paper.
Our team at work.
Other schools load their designs with sand.
The competition involves creating a retaining wall out of paper that can hold both static and dynamic loads.
The CBU box, just after its failure during dynamic loading.
Our team begins to load the 500 pound of sand into the box
loading sand
There’s a strategy to ensuring the sand settles an condenses as much as possible.
Another school places their wall into their box.
Our team continues loading
The competition had many onlookers, with four schools competing at a time.
We finish up our loading.
Scoping out the intended position of the static load.
When we took the box side off, our wall held!
The wall held well with only minor leakage past the one-minute deadline
Then it failed very soon after, before additional load could be applied.
However, we did much better than in past years
The 2013 Geotech Team in competition at PSWC
While each team was responsible for filling their box with sand, we had to move it back into a pile after every school finished since we ran the event.
Our team poses with their technical board.
Other teams compete
Other teams compete
Other teams compete
Other teams compete
the competition from afar
Other teams compete
Other teams compete
A very successful design!
We were in a pretty nice spot for the competition
Some schools brought huge cheering sections
After the competition, we had to carry all of the sand back out.
The bricks got some nice fresh sand between them
After the award ceremony in the evening, the environmental team poses with their first-place trophy
All of the USC ASCE 2013 PSWC participants after the award ceremony.
So, it turns out that there’s a weight limit for the concrete bowling ball competition (ours was clearly way too heavy to use anyway). Fortunately, being engineers, we we able to find an alternate use for it as a soccer ball, kicking it around campus on our way to the Geotech competition. Note that a 25-pound sphere can pick up a lot of momentum…
