Civil engineering students place second and third in construction competition

04/24/2019

By Megan Lantz

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The Penn State Estimating Competition Team took home a second and third place victory in the Construction Association of Western Pennsylvania (CAWP) Estimating Competition on February 14-16 in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania.

This year’s competition marked the third annual CAWP Student Estimating Competition since the competition began in February of 2017. Penn State has participated every year since its founding. This year, nine teams from five universities showed up to put their skills to the test.

Penn State’s teams, Penn State Main Team 1 and Penn State Main Team 2, clutched a second and third place win in the competition, just shy of first place by two points. The second-place team, Penn State Main Team 1, was awarded $1,000 for their success in the competition.

The overall objective of the CAWP competition is to highlight the pros of working in the construction industry and the opportunities that come along with working in this field. It strives to provide hands-on learning opportunities to students, along with applying the skills of working in a team, being able to think critically and obtaining proficient presentation and communication skills.

Thomas Skibinski, assistant teaching professor in civil engineering and adviser for the team, explained the details of the competition.

“The students receive the project bid documents (drawings and specifications) for review the night before the competition,” Skibinski said. “First thing Friday morning, the students attend a pre-bid meeting.”

They are then given the rest of the day to complete the missing parts of the bid proposal, Skibinski explained. The completed bid is to be handed in by 5 p.m. that day. Following this, teams prepare their project presentations for the next day in front of a panel of construction executives. The competition concluded late Saturday afternoon with a presentation from the contractor who constructed the project, followed by the awards ceremony.

Casey Mrazik, a senior in civil engineering and a member of Penn State Main Team 1, shared her biggest takeaways and learning opportunities from the competition.

“The competition setup was very real world,” Mrazik said. “Contracting companies are often given project drawings a few weeks prior to the bid date. To fully understand a project and the special provisions associated with the job enough to determine the cost, schedule, equipment and materials necessary for construction requires significant time and effort.”

Through this competition experience, Mrazik said, she learned the importance of asking for clarifications and questions from the design professional, time management and teamwork.

The competition doesn’t make tasks simple and purposely selects projects that will challenge the students.

The time constraint was the most difficult challenge, according to Mrazik. The team only had eight hours to complete tasks such as pricing a box culvert, choosing the right crane for the job, developing a stream diversion and developing a schedule. She noted that the stream diversion design was the task the team struggled with the most because no members had prior experience in water resources.

“To overcome the adversity, our team worked together and assigned specific tasks based on team-member strengths and backgrounds. We also helped each other out during the day to ensure that we would be able to submit a competitive bid on time,” Mrazik said.

Penn State paired up with Brayman Construction again this year for the competition, specifically their chief estimator, Evan Ring, who contributed a lot in terms of teaching the students the details of construction cost estimating. Brayman Construction has been Penn State’s industry partner since the beginning, and the teams are beyond thankful for their assistance.

“Their expertise is invaluable,” Skibinski said.