In April, BYU’s chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) took home first place at the Rocky Mountain Regional Steel Bridge Competition, beating out 13 other schools from Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, Colorado and New Mexico. The team will be heading to the final round of the competition next month.

On Friday, April 14, 38 teams of students competed in this year’s K-12 Student Innovator of the Year competition. Students competed for over $6,000 in cash prizes. The competition was hosted by DivergeConverge.org, a BYU research group in association with the Technology and Engineering Education program, and the Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship at BYU.

BYU engineering students have created a special adapter to a bike pedal and crank system that allows people like 9-year-old Andrew, a boy born with a condition where his right leg grows much faster than his left, to ride smoothly and painlessly and keep his foot on the pedal.

For civil engineering senior Danielle Nixon, engineering runs in the family. An unlikely route, it was her cousin’s bridal shower that prompted Nixon to become involved with the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), and eventually apply for a WE@BYU Mentorship.

On March 30, Bart Leininger, founder, principal engineer, and chief financial officer of Ashworth Leininger Group (ALG), an environmental engineering and consulting firm, spoke to students about the essence of leadership.

On March 30, the college’s Advancement Council for Engineering and Technology (ACET) led a leadership training meeting for clubs. The training meeting was conducted by members of ACET who taught the students how to better manage time, build great teams and gain leadership skills. Ryan Woodley, BYU alumnus, CEO of Progressive Leasing and member of ACET, was the keynote speaker. His topic was titled, “Building Yourself, Your Peers, and Your Organization.”

BYU’s Technology and Engineering Education students competed in this year's TEECA ITEEA conference and student competitions and took home first place in the technology challenge, the communications challenge, and the problem solving challenge. They also won second place in the teaching and lesson plan challenge. Also, BYU student Joseph Reid was named the ITEEA TEECA Outstanding Student of the Year.

Elder Peter F. Meurs, General Authority Seventy, spoke to students about his engineering background and his work with Fortescue in Northwestern Australia. Meurs shared important lessons he learned while working on several multi-billion-dollar projects with Fortescue and told students how they can apply those lessons to their own lives.