Ohio Northern University’s Smull College of Engineering will host the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) North Central Regional Conference, in which regional universities face off in a variety of competitions, including concrete canoe and steel bridge building competitions, from March 30-April 1.

The three-day conference brings together hundreds of students from across Michigan and Ohio for a number of events, including oral presentations, canoe races, timed bridge assemblies, and load testing. These events provide students with a chance to present a year’s worth of hard work, research, analysis, testing, and construction as well as a unique opportunity to meet and network with present and future leaders in civil engineering.

Participating schools from the North Central Region will include the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Michigan Technological University, Wayne State University, Lawrence Technological University and Western Michigan University.

The concrete canoe competition consists of four separately scored areas: a research and design report, an oral presentation of the design, display and aesthetics, and races. The races this year will be held at the Lima Lake Reservoir on Sunday, April 1, at 9 a.m. The teams will compete in men’s and women’s endurance races, men’s and women’s sprints, and co-ed sprints.

The steel bridge competition will take place in the ONU field house on Saturday, March 31, at 9 a.m. In this competition, teams are ranked by their performance in several categories, including construction time, the aggregate deflection, and the weight of the bridge. The bridge is then loaded with 2,500 pounds of steel to measure the bridge’s structural performance.