UTC CECS Student Construction Competition Team 2021 by Paul Baggett
UTC Student Construction Team Members (Pictured above): Gavin Chambers, Bradley Whymer, Jordan Fryer, Corbin Brooksbank, and Zach Fain. Faculty Advisor: Paul Baggett
The UTC Student Construction Competition Team placed 4th with only fractions of points separating 1st and 4th. The team participated in the Commercial Division. The ASC Region 2 Competition this year was a virtual challenge, which meant the teams from each university stayed on their campuses and communicated only by daily “touch-point” phone calls, email and Zoom meetings. The commercial category included problem solving a 15,000-square-feet interior buildout of a completely new law firm space on the 15th floor of an existing high-rise office building. The law firm wanted all high-end interior finishes according to plans given each team. The project was based on an actual project recently completed in downtown Atlanta. Some of the problems involved only one elevator available for construction crews and supplies, and 13 other interior construction projects were simultaneously going on in the same building. The porcelain tile was to be imported from Italy and would be delayed. The project had only a two-month schedule. The team had to put together an estimate, safety plan, project schedule, and logistics plan for
the project located in busy downtown Atlanta. The project was given to the UTC Competition Team on a Friday with a project proposal due on Tuesday morning and a virtual team PowerPoint presentation Wednesday morning in front of the panel of judges. The categories were commercial, design build, heavy civil, concrete, risk and finance. The other universities in the competition were Florida, Auburn, Clemson, Virginia Tech, Kennesaw State, North Carolina at Charlotte, Western Carolina, among others. Ten of the largest construction companies in the Southeastern U.S. sponsored the competition. During the competition, the students from each university uploaded their resumes to the sponsors. The UTC Student Construction Competition Team represented UTC admirably and professionally under pressure of time and project issues during the virtual challenge and the UTC Team solved each problem successfully presented to them. They worked over 40 hours on the project. Normally, the project would require over 80 hours to complete the proposal. Their dedication and hard work were exemplary as they represented UTC.
Student Engineering Team Earns Honor in National Competition Two student teams from the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga have won honors at national competitions focused on water management. One team won second place in one of the six categories in the WERC Design Contest. Their project—hosted by the Waste-management Education Research Center at New Mexico State University—examined methods of mitigating combined sewer overflows by smart management stormwater around the Chattanooga Zoo. Their project was entered in the competition’s Open Task category in which teams identify their own real-world environmental challenge and address it through research, design and development of a fully operational demonstration of the solution. WERC Design Project Team Members (Pictured left): Carmen Harvey, Beau Neidich, Adam Belton, Riley Ellis, and Deimer Ordones Gomez Faculty Advisor: Jejal Bathi
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