Engineering Geo-Wall team wins third place at national competition

Pictured left to right are civil engineering students Jesse Pennington, Naomi Wertz, Armin Motahari and Kevin Brown in Los Angeles, CA.

For the second year in a row, The University of Akron’s (UA) Geo-Wall team received third place at the National Geo-Challenge competition.

Team members Armin Motahari (captain), Jessie Pennington, Naomi Wertz, and Kevin Brown competed against more than 30 teams from around the country for this event which was part of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Geo-Congress held in Los Angeles, CA this past March.

The national Geo-Wall competition is an annual event sponsored by ASCE, and the objective is for teams to design and build a model of a mechanically stabilized earth retaining wall using paper reinforcement to stabilize a soil box. The box and model are completely student-designed and built and require months of work and preparation. The competition also provides a great way for students to collaborate with their peers and network with professionals in the field.

"This is the second year we have participated in this event, and also the second time the team won third place competing against more than 30 teams from across the U.S.," said Dr. Nariman Mahabadi, assistant professor of civil engineering and the team's advisor. "This cannot be achieved without the hard work and dedication of each of our team members who spent weeks of work preparing and rehearsing for the final rounds of competition."

The Geo-Wall team constructing the mechanically stabilized earth retaining structure and compacting the soil. (GeoCongress 2023 – Los Angeles, CA)

The Geo-Wall team typically consists of undergraduate and graduate students in civil engineering (especially geotechnical engineering) and offers an opportunity for students to apply their classroom knowledge to real-world engineering problems. Members work collaboratively to design, analyze, and build the retaining wall while also considering issues such as safety, cost-effectiveness, and sustainability.

Congratulations to the team for their hard work, practice, teamwork, and recognition.

RELATED CONTENT:

• Learn more about our civil engineering programs.
• Discover our Student Design Teams which allow students at all levels to apply classroom theory to a major design project.

Story by CEPS Marketing.

Media contact: Cristine Boyd, 330-972-6476 or cboyd@uakron.edu.