Concrete canoe races, steel bridges, technical papers, K’nexercise. It’s the 2001 Upstate New York Regional Conference hosted by West Point’s American Society of Civil Engineers student chapter. This two-day event takes place tonight and Saturday at the old PX building and Round Pond. Eleven colleges, including Buffalo, Canton, Clarkson, Cornell, Hudson Valley Community College, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY Institute of Technology at Utica/Rome, Syracuse, Union and USMA, will compete in the four events.

In the concrete canoe competitions, colleges are challenged to build their canoes out of concrete. They receive points for presentation, float tests and race results. Presentations and canoe displays are tonight starting at 5 p.m. at the old PX building. Float tests at Round Pond start at 8 a.m. Saturday and end with the canoe races.

In the steel bridge competition, teams earn points for building their bridge in the shortest amount of time and for holding the largest loads. There will be four lanes, with two lanes running at any time. After the construction and load testing, the bridges will be put on display. This competition starts at 8 a.m. Saturday at the old PX building.

In the technical paper competition, students will present their papers to a panel of judges. They will be graded on presentation and quality. For West Point, cadets will present their capstone projects. This competition also begins at 8 a.m. Saturday at the old PX building.

In the K’nexercise competition, teams of four (including some local high school students) will experience a civil engineering project from start to finish. Each team is broken up into two groups of two, the contractor and the architecture-engineer firm. The A-E group will design the structure and estimate the cost required to complete the task. The contractor group receives the A-E design, bids on the project and orders materials. The contractor’s final project will be a submitted bid. Teams will then build the structure for time. The winner is decided by the highest profit, lowest bid and the lowest construction time. This event starts at 7 a.m. Saturday at the old PX building.