2025 ASCE Frontier Student Symposium Recap

The 2025 ASCE Frontier Student Symposium hosted over 800 students and professionals from Mexico, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas. This year, the newly branded name “Frontier” was introduced to attendees, having been selected by student members during the region-wide renaming competition and officially adopted at the Frontier Student Business Meeting.

The annual Student Symposium continued its tradition of excellence, providing students with a platform to showcase their engineering skills through competitions, network with industry professionals, and prepare for their future careers. The theme for the 2025 event, “Adapting | Modernizing | Retrofitting,” was chosen and developed by student leads Anissa Reyes and Cody Miller. Recent graduate and alumnus Raul Sandoval played a significant role in the planning process, alongside Faculty Advisor Dr. Rajesh Vuddandam.

Over 20 companies and sponsors participated in the annual career fair, offering student attendees opportunities to grow their professional networks, learn about the industry, and interview in a casual environment. Sponsors also delivered a variety of technical and soft-skill presentations.

Despite some rain, the social events were well attended. The student-hosted social featured a mechanical bull, networking games, and karaoke. Attendees performed karaoke in multiple languages and reminisced about the vocal talents of fellow students into the next day’s competitions. The Texas Section Younger Members also organized a social event with networking games and design-build challenges.

This year marked the highest number of competitions ever hosted at our Symposium, including five society-wide competitions and seven local competitions. The society-wide competitions included Concrete Canoe, Surveying, Sustainable Solutions, Steel Bridge, and the pilot competition, Timber Strong.

Fourteen teams from Mexico, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas participated in Concrete Canoe at the 2025 symposium. Each year, teams are challenged to design, build, and race a canoe made from concrete. The teams are then judged on the final prototype, a project proposal, a technical presentation, and races demonstrating canoe performance. Though the weather did not permit water races, universities were allowed to prove their endurance and strength in a footrace on land, just for fun. Texas A&M University placed first overall, qualifying them to compete in the ASCE Concrete Canoe Society-Wide Finals Competition, where 19 teams from around the world will compete in June 2025 at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

The ASCE UESI Surveying Competition and ASCE Sustainable Solutions Competition each had six participating teams this year. Surveying teams were required to use equipment and processes standard to the construction industry to survey a pre-determined area on the Tarleton State University campus. Sustainable Solutions teams were given a contemporary design challenge which required sustainability-based engineering to complete. Angelo State University placed first in Surveying and The University of Texas at Austin placed first in Sustainable Solutions.  Both teams qualified for ASCE Society-wide Finals Competition later this month where they will compete against 18 Surveying teams and 21 Sustainable Solutions teams, respectively.

There were 20 participating teams for the Student Steel Bridge Competition.  This competition challenges students to apply structural engineering knowledge to design a 20-foot steel bridge which must withstand a load of 2,500 pounds. Judging criteria includes build time, weight, construction economy, deflection due to loading, and aesthetics. Universidad Panamericana, Guadalajara placed first, Universidad Autonoma Del Estado De Mexico placed second, Tecnológico de Monterrey placed third, and The University of Texas at El Paso placed fourth. These four teams were invited to compete in the 2025 Student Steel Bridge National Finals on May 31^st alongside 39 other teams.  The Frontier teams placed 22^nd, 23^rd, 27^th, and 36^th overall, maintaining their placement order from regionals.

This year’s Timber-Strong Design Build℠ Competition featured seven teams who designed and constructed a two-story wood light-framed building. The goal was to create a structure that is sustainable, aesthetically appealing, and structurally adequate.  The University of Texas at Arlington placed first, though a society-wide competition is not yet available.

The local competitions saw 17 teams in Concrete Bowling, one in Geowall, and 10 in Mystery Design. Additionally, the student-run competitions gathered great participation: seven teams participated in the Concrete Cornhole, 11 in Tug of War, 13 in Scavenger Hunt, and six in the FE Exam competition. The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley took home first place in both Concrete Bowling and Tug of War. Oklahoma State University took first place in Geowall. Mystery Design’s first place was awarded to The New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. Texas A&M University Kingsville placed first in Concrete Cornhole. Scavenger Hunt’s first place went to the University of Houston. Finally, Texas Tech University took first place in the FE Exam competition.