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CE Club March 2017 Update

Structural Engineering with L.A. Fuess Partners

Phillip Pesek, Derek Marucci, and Lauren Wood of L.A. Fuess Partners led a two-part series of presentations on structural engineering with the Woodrow Wilson CE Club. These presentations aligned perfectly with the class curriculum! Mr. Carver was just beginning to get into the basics of statics when Derek and Phil gave the first presentation. They explained the different types of structural engineering from buildings and bridges and even explained some of the elements of structural design that they work on every day at work. Phil then ran the students through the calculations for a simply supported beam with a point load at midspan. We hope that the students learned something from this with their first statics test looming in a couple of weeks.

Phil and Lauren then came back to the school two weeks later to lead the famous Build-A-Beam activity. The students were given twenty minutes to build the most efficient beam possible using six strips of foam-core board, hot glue guns, and nails. The team with the highest load-to-weight ratio was deemed the winner in each class.

This is the fourth year that L.A. Fuess Partners has participated in the CE Club program and we are so grateful for their continued support of the club! Additional photos from the Build-A-Beam activity can be found online here. A video of last year’s activity can also be found here.