A group of students from the Civil Engineering degree at Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM) won first place at the Blue Sky Competition Contest which took place from 10 to 13 April.
This competition, which took place in the framework of the Texas Mexico Student Symposium of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gathered teams from 18 universities, four of which were Mexican ( Monterrey Institute of Technology, UAEM, La Salle Victoria, and UNAM ), while the rest were American institutions such as the University of Houston, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Texas at San Antonio .
The team from UNAM, composed of students Carlos Alberto Ibarra, Sara Palma, Jesús Alejandro Márquez, Juan Carlos García, Ricardo Alarcón, and Edwin Rodríguez , won first place in the Oral Presentation and Written Proposal categories, and third place in the Graphic Marketing category. Furthermore, Alarcón Guerrero won second place in an individual competition called Student Paper Presentation Competition.
According to Carlos Alberto Ibarra, chairman of the student chapter at the ASCE’s Engineering Faculty and a contestant at the event, Blue Sky is an innovating competition that aims to bring students face to face with some of the greatest civil engineering challenges of the 21st century while reducing the environmental impact of construction and encouraging the use of clean energy.
The Mexican team presented a project for a floating city
. “We evaluated several ideas. We concluded that, though the floating city would face the challenge of being built in the middle of the ocean, it would be 100% sustainable and meet a good level of development. This entails all sorts of energy use proposals, as well as food production, water purification, recycling systems to avoid waste, etc,” Ibarra explained.
In order to face the challenges of their project, the team put forward solutions and alternatives that would make it possible for the city to work with a modular structure.
The Mexican team has now been invited to participate in the American contest taking place in Melbourne, Florida , from 6 to 9 June, where they will face teams from China, the U.S., and Canada.
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