Historic Accomplishment by the Sac State Civil Engineering Student Team

Sac State Civil Engineering Student Team, Herky's Big Freakin' Beam Team with Clark Pacific Sponsorship Wins Two Awards in National PCI Big Beam Competition: Best Report and 4th Place Overall ($1750 award total)

Congratulations to Herky's Big Freakin' Beam Team (Anton Sta. Maria (Team Leader 1), Nayef Al-Fayiz (Team Leader 2), Javier Gaytan, Vadim Gritsak, Nour Hojeij, Garrett Hope, and Shaira Soliva) and sponsoring precaster, Clark Pacific, for their historic performance, winning two national awards in the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI) Big Beam Competition: Best Report and 4th Place overall.

The PCI Judging Committee recently selected the Engineering Student Design Competition winners, also known as the Big Beam Contest. The objective is for teams of students to fabricate and test a precast/prestressed concrete beam with the help of local precast concrete PCI Producer Members. Prizes are awarded to the top twenty (20) performers considering efficient design, highest load capacity, and other categories. The Sac State Team's 4th place finish is the highest in university history.

In addition, the PCI judging committee awarded Sac State, the winner of Best Report, which considers clear presentation of data, professional look and formatting, and an overall well-written report. The Sac State Team won the Best Report Award for the second time in 3 years.

Winning one of the highly competitive awards requires teamwork not only among students, but with industry and the college. The following partners helped make the team awards possible:

Clark Pacific: Glen Underwood, Brian Bertain, and Nathaniel Wilson (overall), Rick Armstrong and Sergey Dzhangetov (foremen), and Bob De Ruitter (mix design), among others.

Sac State College of Engineering and Computer Science: Mike Newton and Jeffrey Ortiz, with student helpers Jared Weinburke and Jeremy Willis (Laboratory Technicians) and Faculty/Technical advisor, Prof. Eric Matsumoto.

Results are available online: https://www.pci.org/bigbeam/.

by Dr. Eric Matsumoto