CAEM Student and Team Victorious in First Precast Concrete Competition

CAEM honor and graduate student Fernanda Fraijo Arce put her civil engineering skills to real-world use as part of a team whose design of a horse barn won the $3,000 first prize at the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Industry Project Precast 2019 in Louisville, Kentucky.

“The students had no idea what their project was, nor had they ever met the industry mentors or other members of their teams before they arrived in Louisville,” said Marty McIntyre, executive director of the PCI Foundation.

This is the first year for Project Precast, a competition designed for students and graduates of PCI Foundation-sponsored education programs to introduce them to precast and prestressed concrete. It gives teams the two days of the convention to create a precast design – in this case a horse barn – with the help of a mentor.

The winning Tindall Corporation-sponsored team was mentored by Rob Smith, and consisted of Arce, architecture student Lori North of Clemson University and construction master’s candidate Kinga Pabjan of Washington University in St. Louis.

CAEM also made a further showing in the competition when research associate Ismail Kuzucu’s team was awarded an honorable mention.