Eight students and two faculty members from the Department of Construction Management and Civil and Construction Engineering spent part of their spring break building a bridge in Baton Rouge, La.

The project was part of a regional competition hosted by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Deep South Regional Student Conference. This was the second year a UALR team participated in the regional competition as guests.

According to Dr. Nickolas S. Jovanovic, associate professor and faculty adviser for the team, the bridges were designed, analyzed, and optimized by the students to satisfy specifications established by ASCE. The bridge was erected at UALR, then taken apart and transported to Louisiana, where the timed construction competition and load testing was performed.

“The students constructed and deconstructed the bridge more than 20 times to practice for the competition,” Jovanovic said. “When they started, it took more than an hour to erect the bridge, but they reduced their construction time to about 12 minutes by the day of the competition.”

The UALR team competed with 13 other teams from colleges in Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Mississippi but was not eligible for an award because it is not yet an official ASCE Student Chapter.

The team members included:

• Pacifique Nshuti Mwabo, team captain, civil and construction engineering major

• Abdulaziz Alrowili, civil and construction engineering major

• Chase Brown, construction management major

• Joshua Collins, civil and construction engineering major

• Roland Csege, civil and construction engineering major

• Ignace Mugabo Nkurikiyimfura, civil and construction engineering major

• Guy Pardew, construction management major

• Anthony Smith, civil and construction engineering major

Several other construction management and civil and construction engineering students helped with the project. The team coach is faculty member Mark Squires.