A team of NDSU engineering students won first place overall and first place in design report at the 2019 GeoWall regional competition held at the University of Manitoba on March 9.
The NDSU GeoWall design team includes undergraduate students Coltyn Nelson, Nicholas Attigah, Eugene Slagstad III and Molly Berdan and graduate students Keshab Thapa and Asif Arshid.
The objective of the GeoWall competition is to design and build a model retaining wall in an 18” x 26” x 18” wooden box. After being filled with sand, the front face of the box is removed leaving only a piece of light posterboard paper. By incorporating engineering design elements featuring strips of a thinner weight Kraft paper, the posterboard wall must then withhold a bucket load of 60 pounds in addition to the weight of approximately 600 pounds of sand.
The GeoWall challenge has specific parameters that teams must conform to related to the size of the box and weight of the sand, but there are still many opportunities for creative thinking. For example, all materials for the posterboard wall must be prepared onsite, within a 20-minute timeframe so time management is important. In order to quickly cut the retaining strips required for their design, the NDSU team used a pasta cutter, which created uniform thin strips which were then cut to various lengths and color coded.
Arshid is a civil engineering doctoral candidate and the team’s captain. “This GeoWall project was the best initiative I ever took and it furthered my confidence in myself,” Arshid said. “It taught me putting your head down and moving with baby steps can result in a full-fledged victory, regardless of how slow or fast you go.”
NDSU civil and environmental engineering assistant professor Beena Ajmera is the team’s adviser. “Our group’s design used only 3.76 grams of paper in retaining material for the wall which was lowest of the competition (the next closest teams used 5.76 and 6.81 grams),” she said. “The weight of the material you use is a closely guarded secret because, during competition, the teams compete in order of most material used to least amount used and it creates a real sense of excitement to see who has designed the best retaining wall with the least material. I was so proud of our team for winning first place for their design and also getting first place in the reporting of the design.”
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