The ICE South West Graduates and Students Prize Papers Competition and Communications Competition have now taken place and we can now reveal the winners!
The Prize Papers competition took place on 6 March, kindly hosted by Taunton City Club.
The event was a great success, with all attendees going away with new and varied knowledge on important engineering topics. The marking was incredibly tight, with just the narrowest margins separating the three places.
The winning paper and presentation from Jonathan Lee of Plymouth University had a strong South West, sustainability and maritime flavour in that it covered research into optimising modern maritime breakwater design.
Peter Radford, Chairman of ICE South West, commented: "SW engineering history buffs may recall that Plymouth is the home of a massive 200-year-old breakwater built by illustrious Georgian engineer John Rennie. This amazing structure consumed 4,000,000 tons of rock and is still doing a fantastic job today.
I am sure the great man would be looking down with some satisfaction that, 200 years on, important research into modern breakwater design is being conducted at the home of his ground (and water) breaking creation!"
First runner-up was John Bennetts with a fascinating talk on improved assessment of concrete half joints in bridges. This important work saves money and public disruption by proving bridges are stronger than previously thought.
Second runner-up Darren Norman's paper highlighted important practical pitfalls in steel reinforcement detailing, which can have dramatic impact on buildability and costly construction programmes.
The three finalists will receive £200, £100 and £50 respectively, and an abridged version of the winning paper will be published in Fulcrum magazine this autumn.
The second Graduates and Students Competition to take place in the South West this March was the Communications Competition, kindly hosted by Plymouth City Club on 13th March.
Two teams of graduates, named 'Arup Bristol' and 'The Civil Engineering Dining Club', battled it out in a mock-public inquiry, each facing some tough questions from the audience.
Again, the marks were very tight and there was little to separate the two teams. After much deliberation from the judges, The Civil Engineering Dining Club was declared the winning team. They will receive a prize of £200 and will take part in the national semi-final.
Many thanks to all those who entered, attended and/or judged the competitions. They are a great learning experience for our graduates and students and we look forward to running them again next year. Entry details will be posted on our awards and competitions page towards the end of 2012.