Van Zee, Hopkins lead WKU to regional engineering title


Posted on April 3, 2015 8:34 PM



WKU civil engineering students finished first overall in the 2015 Ohio Valley Student Conference March 25-28 at the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati State Technical and Community College.

Two students from Logan County, Raymond Van Zee and Justin Hopkins, not only helped win the overall prize but also were part of winning teams in some of the contests.

Drake Riley, son of Tim and Pam Riley, who have many Logan relatives, was also on a winning team.

WKU’s concrete canoe and steel bridge teams won their competitions and qualified for national events this summer. WKU teams also won the balsa wood bridge and geotechnical engineering competitions.

A total of 14 colleges and universities from Ohio, Kentucky and Western Pennsylvania competed in civil engineering competitions.

Steel bridge

WKU finished first overall in the steel bridge competition and advanced to the National Student Steel Bridge Competition at the University of Missouri-Kansas City on May 23-24. This is the third year in a row that the team qualified for the national competition. The team placed first in stiffness, display and structural efficiency, and second in construction speed, economy and lightness.

 “The students, using the knowledge gained from last year’s trip to the national competition and engineering coursework taken at WKU, designed and constructed an innovative truss bridge structure,” said Dr. Shane Palmquist, steel bridge team faculty advisor. “The team was truly dedicated and unified, practicing hard to win the competition. I am extremely proud of them and their accomplishment.”

Steel bridge team members include: tri-captains Kyle Parks of Bloomfield, Justin Hopkins of Russellville and Dalton Hankins of Greenville; Sarah Hay of Louisa; Lindsey Gadberry Phelps of Somerset; Ben Mullins of Waynesburg; Allyson Alvey of Paducah; Raymond Van Zee of Russellville; Ashane Netthisinghe of Bowling Green; Khaled Alammar of Kuwait City, Kuwait; C. Jeremiah Short of Greenville; and Blake Adams of Monticello.

Balsa Wood Bridge

WKU teams finished first and second in the balsa wood bridge competition. This was the third year in a row that WKU won this competition.

Team members include Raymond Van Zee of Russellville; Blake Adams of Monticello; James Thomason of Bowling Green; Clark Parker of Morgantown; Taylor Bowling of London; Tyler Baker of Lawrenceburg; and Jeremy Marin of Guthrie.

Team advisor, Dr. Warren Campbell, said: “Two bridges from WKU were summited for this competition, and the bridge summited by the first four team members held an amazing 40 percent more load than any other bridge in the competition.”

Geotechnical engineering

WKU finished first in the geotechnical engineering competition. Team members include Ben Mullins of Waynesburg; Justin Hopkins of Russellville; Drake Riley of Bowling Green; Lindsey Gadberry Phelps of Somerset; Jessica Collins of Somerset; and Ryan Spaulding of Springfield. The competition was to build a mound of soil the fastest and tallest using the least reinforcement as possible.

Concrete canoe

WKU finished first overall in the concrete canoe competition and advanced to the National Concrete Canoe Competition at the University of Clemson on June 20-22. The team placed first in final product and second on the canoe report and on the presentation. In the canoe races, WKU swept all of the competitions, finishing first in men’s, women’s and co-ed sprint, and first in men’s and women’s slalom.

Concrete canoe team members include co-captains Dylan Jones of Berea and S. Kent Jones of Somerset; Lucas Guinn of Monticello; Andrew Keightley of Destrehan, Louisiana; Jackson Daugherty of Morgantown; Elijah Garcia of Chino Hills, California; Jacob Cowan of Columbia; Michael Pickett of Radcliff; Joe Owle of Cherokee, North Carolina; Thad Billingsley of Scottsville; Clintyn Weimer of Mt. Vernon, Ind.; Nick Beasmore of Lawrenceburg; Rachael Wilson of Elkton; Kayla Frye of Nancy; and Hilary Richards of Johannesburg, South Africa.

 

In addition to WKU’s Department of Engineering, participating schools were Akron, Carnegie Mellon, Cincinnati, Cincinnati State, Cleveland State, Dayton, Geneva College, Louisville, Kentucky, Ohio, Ohio State, Pittsburgh, and Youngstown State. 


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