When a torrent of water ripped down Boulder Creek听in September 2013 during historic flooding, a pedestrian bridge connecting the Boulder Creek Path with Folsom Field was one of the casualties.
For 50 civil engineering students, the bridge鈥檚 loss became an educational opportunity. During the 2014 fall semester, they took their education out of the classroom and down to the creek, where, for their civil engineering capstone project, they worked to design a replacement.
The annual civil engineering capstone project allows students to integrate and apply the theory and skills they鈥檝e learned in their courses by working on realistic, immersive design projects.
The challenge for the pedestrian bridge project was not only to design a bridge to serve as a formal gateway to the north side of campus that accommodates daily use, game-day and special event traffic, but also to integrate it aesthetically into the design of the new athletic complex expansion currently underway.
Students were divided into 10 teams of five students each. The teams included students from each of several civil engineering鈥檚 specialties: structural engineering, geotechnical engineering, water resources, and construction engineering and management.
From left to right: Matt Worthington, Rob Wolff, Cory Wagner, Joshua Hill
Julia Carroll (CivEngr 鈥�14), from Lyons, Colorado, and Rob Sparks (CivEngr 鈥�15), from Ca帽on City, Colorado, were both on the South Paw Engineering Team. Carroll鈥檚 emphasis was construction engineering and management, while Sparks brought a structural engineering emphasis.
鈥淭his project was exciting,鈥� says Carroll, 鈥渂ecause it gave us the opportunity to combine concepts from all of our course work, to think creatively and design a structure that has the potential to be built on our very own campus. We鈥檙e using skills learned in class to arrive at a solution for each component of the bridge.鈥�
The students鈥� clients were the university and the design-build firms working on the athletic complex expansion鈥擯opulous Architects and Mortenson Construction.
Client-based projects are an integral part of the education at the College of Engineering and Applied Science, according to Matt Morris (CivEngr 鈥�99, MS 鈥�02), who serves as the course coordinator for the civil engineering capstone project.
鈥淭he purpose of this course is to integrate all the different civil engineering disciplines into one project,鈥� says Morris. 鈥淭he senior capstone project goes beyond just doing the engineering design, however. It gets into presentation skills and working as a team, which help prepare students for real-world projects.鈥�
Students met with Mortenson, Populous and the campus landscape architect multiple times at the site of the proposed bridge to ensure continuity of design and function with the athletic complex expansion. All of the designs were judged at the end of the fall semester. The winning design will be used as a basis for final design and construction of the new pedestrian bridge when funding is available.
鈥淎 final design like this involves providing solutions to dozens of problems and looking at details that include every weld, every connection,鈥� says Sparks. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a chance you might make a mistake at each step, so it鈥檚 not enough to have a good design. You have to be certain it鈥檚 right, regardless of complexity.鈥�
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And the winner is:
- BMC Construction (above)
- Team was chosen for overall solution
- Design, cost, schedule, realistic approach, minimal impact to the environment, and team work were deciding factors
- The students' design will be used as a basis for CU Boulder to solicit a professional design team
