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Joe Velho and Carlos Varela spray the finishing touches on a bridge built for this weekend's Steel Bridge competition. Niki Desautels / Special to the Daily [Click to enlarge]

This weekend, it will be San Jose State University's entry for the American Society of Civil Engineers Mid-Pacific Region Concrete Canoe conference, according to Patty Comacho, a civil engineering senior and the conference co-chair.

A steel bridge is also SJSU's entry for the American Society of Civil Engineers Mid-Pacific Region Steel Bridge conference, Comacho said.

This year SJSU, along with Santa Clara University, will be hosting the conference in which nine universities, will be participating in, Comacho said.

According to Comacho, the organization will be celebrating its 150th anniversary this year.

"It is a great way for us to come together with different universities," Comacho said, adding it is about sportsmanship, a learning experience and a way to tell people about SJSU's facilities.

In the Engineering building courtyard on Thursday, contestants got ready for the competition that is slated to begin today and last until Sunday moving supplies, spray painting bridges and constructing the façade for the concrete canoe demonstration.

Hector Pesqueda, a project coordinator for the steel bridge, watched as team captain Joe Velho moved parts of the bridge.

"The purpose is for students to become involved in a hands-on project," Pesqueda said. "It gives them experience. It puts the theory to work. They have a clear connection with the theory. It also makes a good note on your resume as well."

Pesqueda said there is also a timber bridge contest, but this year SJSU will be participating only in the steel bridge and concrete canoe competition.

Last year, SJSU's concrete canoe entry stood second in the regional conference.

The concrete canoe conference will be held in two parts. The first part of the contest is slated to be held on Saturday in Santa Clara University and will involve the display and presentation, Comacho said. On Sunday, canoe races are scheduled to be held from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Lake Cunningham, Comacho said.

Kris Bartelle, the canoe team captain, supervised the final stages of the building of the canoe.

"When you first think of concrete, it has a bad name," Bartelle said. "This competition shows it is a pretty interesting material. You can make it whatever color you want, whatever weight you want and it is pretty dynamic material and you can make it whatever shape you want which you can't do with other materials."

Pesqueda said the concrete can float in the water because the concrete has additives in it, which makes the concrete lighter than water.

"If I throw a cork in the water, you know it is lighter than water so it is going to float on top of the water," Pesqueda said. "But if I throw a rock in, the rock is heavier than water, it will sink. The canoe then has concrete that has a density less than the density of water."

Pesqueda said that helps the concrete canoe stay afloat. The canoe, which will be decorated in blue and gold, the Spartan colors, weighs around 60 pounds, is around 25 feet long and has to be strong enough to hold four individuals, Pesqueda said.

The canoe will be judged on the aesthetics, an oral presentation, the performance in the races and whether the canoe sinks or not, according to Pesqueda and Bartelle.

"One of the tests for the concrete canoe is that it has to float at least two inches above the water," Pesqueda said. "Once it is flooded, it has to sink at a minimum (two inches) or higher, remaining above the water."

Pesqueda said it is a vendetta for the concrete canoe team. "Several teams have dominated the concrete canoe competition over the years," Pesqueda said.

Some of the universities that have dominated the competition include UC Berkeley, California State University at Chico and UC Davis, Pesqueda said.

Joe Velho, the team captain for the steel bridge team said UC Davis has its own concrete canoe laboratory.

Pesqueda said students skipped classes and even took money out of their own pockets for the contest.

He said a concrete canoe costs about $5,000 to build and the steel bridge costs around $1,500.

"If you look around you, at the Engineering building, at all the superstructures in all the major cities, they are all made of concrete," Pesqueda said. "Concrete is very easy to procure, very easy to mix and if you follow certain guidelines it will withstand environmental condition at a very cheap price."

Contestants had been working on the design of the bridge since January, Pesqueda said.

Placing their bridges across a 12-foot-wide imaginary river drawn in the middle of the Engineering courtyard, the contestants will be judged on their ability to join the parts of the bridge in the least amount of time with the least number of penalties, Pesqueda said.

The bridge will then be tested, among other things, in its ability to withstand weight and aesthetics, Pesqueda said.

The blue and gold bridge is built on a one-10th scale to a real bridge, Pesqueda said.

"It will be an exact replica of the real one, but miniaturized by that standard," Pesqueda said.

Kurt McMullin, assistant professor at the department of civil and environmental engineering and faculty adviser to the steel bridge team, said steel bridges are common.

"The design is not so far away from what real bridges look," McMullin said. "The steel bridge is very closely related to what they might be related to next year. We're going to build a new bridge from Oakland to San Francisco. Some of these students may be working on that."

McMullin said when you actually build something, it is entirely different than just thinking about it.

"Although the building is short, a lot of the problems they run into are some of the problems that they run into when building a real bridge. It is nice prestige for the school to show our students are taking charge and going places," he said.

The contestants hope to go to the finals to be held in Wisconsin in June.

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