Three students from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Macau (UM), recently won the second prize at the Tenth National Structure Design Contest for College Students held in Tianjin.

The three students are Fan Yawang, Chan Sio Man, and Sio Wai Lam. They competed with more than 125 teams from 124 universities in China, including Tsinghua University, Tongji University, the Harbin Institute of Technology, Zhejiang University, and Tianjin University, which are all very strong in the field of civil engineering and have all passed the Ministry of Education’s recent evaluation of civil engineering programmes.

The theme of this year’s competition is ‘Long-span Roof Structure’. Each team was required to design and fabricate a long-span bamboo roof structure with a plan area of 900 x 600 mm2 and a height of 425 mm. The model submitted by the UM is a combination of arches and columns. The model weighed 93 grams and demonstrated a load-bearing capacity of 41 kilograms.

Fan says that the competition allowed him to put knowledge into practice, broadened his horizons, and improved his civil engineering skills. The supervisors of the UM team are FST Associate Professor Er Guokang and Assistant Professor Lam Chi Chiu. Tou Ka Man, a technician from the Structures Laboratory of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, provided assistance with the team’s model testing at UM.

Co-organised by the professional advisory committee for civil engineering programmes at higher education institutions and the educational affairs committee of China Civil Engineering Society, the annual competition is one of the nine highest-ranked inter-varsity competitions in science and engineering in China. It is also the most important competition in the field of civil engineering. The event aims to provide a platform for civil engineering students to exchange ideas, build friendships, improve civil engineering skills, apply their creativity, and learn how to work with others. It also hopes to strengthen ties among civil engineering departments at various universities.