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Inside The Pit: How UF engineers turn concrete, steel and sweat into championships

UF’s Eckhoff Steel Bridge Team assembles its bridge earlier this year during competition. Photo by Sergio Mendez, ASCE

UF’s Eckhoff Steel Bridge Team assembles its bridge earlier this year during competition. Photo by Sergio Mendez, ASCE

  • UF’s Department of Civil & Coastal Engineering is home to two national champion design teams: Concrete Canoe and Steel Bridge. 
  • The Eckhoff Steel Bridge Team and the Concrete Canoe Team have won a combined total of 13 national championships in ASCE competitions. 
  • The program, its facilities and its faculty advisor are all part of the program’s success. 

In the bowels of Weil Hall, affectionately known as The Pit, a rabbit’s warren of rooms and hallways lead to a nondescript industrial space with a bare concrete floor.  

In this unlikeliest of places, champions are advised and championships are won. 

The Weil Hall Structures and Materials Laboratory, as it’s properly known, is home to two wildly successful student design teams under the auspices of the University of Florida’s chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers, or ASCE.  

Read full story at essie.ufl.edu