POTSDAM -- Following their first-place finish in regional competition in October, Clarkson’s Design Build (DB)/ Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) Student Projects for Engineering Experience and Design (SPEED) team has gone on to place second in the open problem at the national level completion in Sparks/Reno, Nevada recently.

“The integrated problem category is widely considered the toughest category, which seeks to expose students to the most complex [construction] projects,” stated Mr. Fred Case, a Project Executive with the Clark Construction Group who sponsored and was the lead judge for this category. “It is the only project category that allows graduate level students to compete.”

Clarkson’s team was edged by the second of Stanford University’s pair of teams that competed in the category and was the only pure undergraduate team in the competition this year of the 13 that took on this challenge.

The ASC (ascweb.org) open categories at the Region 6/7 competition challenges construction students from across North America and beyond, to compete against other four year colleges and universities in a pressure cooker of scheduling, estimating, constructability analysis and knowledge of the construction industry.

Teams compete in several categories ranging from traditional commercial construction or heavy civil construction to such new areas as Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Virtual Design and Construction (VDC).

“Clarkson far exceeded our expectations, especially given that the team only consisted of undergraduates and didn’t have any experience in high rise buildings,” offered Mr. Case.

Clarkson, wearing their distinguishing yellow/gold shirts with green lettering, was led by two co-captains Zach Roegiers (CE ’19) and Francis Whaley (CE ’19) and included members Justin Brinkmann (CE ’19), Zach Hewke (Mech E ’19), Mallory Keough (E&M ’19), and Cory Schneid (E&M ’19). Zachary Gordon (CE ’18), who lead the team to victory in the Region 1 competition but graduated in December, served as assistant coach along with head coach James Billings (CE ’78).

In placing second, Clarkson’s team beat two teams from UC-Berkley, and other teams from such diverse institutions as Auburn University, UC-Denver, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Oklahoma, University of Southern California, and Colorado State.

Of note, this was Clarkson’s first year competing in this category at the national level and, other than Oklahoma, every other team had previously competed in this category.

“This was a great experience,” said co-captain Francis Whaley, “one that I will remember for a really long time.”

“Clarkson’s team had one of the best owner's meetings, demonstrating their professionalism, and had one of the top written reports in the whole competition,” offered the Clark judges during the awards banquet on Saturday night.

“I had Dr. Brian Kleiner, of Virginia Tech’s Myers-Lawson School of Construction, personally come up to me to congratulate our team for our accomplishment. He offered that he was really impressed with the caliber of what our students brought to the competition,” said coach Jim Billings. “Our whole team was treated like rock stars by everyone in the competition Saturday night, for what our students accomplished.”

Clarkson has now placed three years in a row in regional competition and this is the first at the national level.

“The atmosphere at this competition is really awesome because of the amount of teams and the competitiveness that is present/the schools that you are competing against,” offered co-captain Zach Roegiers. “I would consider the time spent at the ASC competitions as my most valuable experience next to internships while attending college here at Clarkson.”