Student engineering teams earn honors in national competitions

Two student teams from the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga have won honors at national competitions focused on water management.

One team earned Honorable Mention from the Environmental Protection Agency in its ninth annual Campus RainWorks Challenge. In the competition, students design green infrastructure solutions for their campus to address stormwater pollution.

“Innovative stormwater management design has the potential to create vibrant and dynamic school campuses to benefit students and the surrounding community,” said EPA Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator for Water Radhika Fox. “This engaging competition encourages problem-solving through design while introducing students to opportunities to join the next generation of clean water professionals.”

The competition was divided into two categories: Master Plan, which examined how green infrastructure can be integrated across campus, and Demonstration Project, which focused on how green infrastructure can address stormwater pollution at a specific site on campus or local elementary, junior high or high schools. The UTC team was entered in the Demonstration Project.

The University of Pennsylvania won the Demonstration Project Category and the University of Texas at Arlington won Master Plan.

In another competition, a student team won second place in one of the six categories in the WERC Design Contest. Their project—hosted by the Waste-management Education Research Center at New Mexico State University—examined methods of mitigating combined sewer overflows by smart management stormwater around the Chattanooga Zoo.

Their project was entered in the competition’s Open Task category in which teams identify their own real-world environmental challenge and address it through research, design and development of a fully operational demonstration of the solution.

The University of Arkansas won first place in the category.