Engineering Team Wins Awards, Qualifies for Nationals

ASU RAMgineers (Back, L-R) Nicholas Gillett, Dr. Anthony Battistini (advisor), Erica Ortiz, Linda Abernathy, Maria Ochoa, Nora Lopez, Tyler “TK” Kornegay; (Front, L-R) John “Jack” Carrico, Damon Butterfras, Brandon Machingura, Hunter Hamilton The 10-member ASU “RAMgineers” team competed in three contests at the symposium: the Surveying Competition, Blue Sky Competition and Concrete Bowling Competition.

The RAMgineers surveying team made up of John “Jack” Carrico, Maria Ochoa and Erica Ortiz, all of San Angelo, took first place in the Surveying Competition. That also qualified them for the national competition at the Utility Engineering and Surveying Institute’s 2020 Surveying & Geomatics Conference this summer in Lawrenceburg, Ind.

RAMgineers with their Blue Sky Competition poster entry The entire RAMgineers team competed in the Blue Sky Competition, which consisted of formulating an engineering project to address “Smart Mobility in Smart Cities: Transforming the Way We Live.” Teams were required to write a technical proposal, design a poster and present their proposal to a panel of judges. The RAMgineers’ project, titled “SmarkLink,” dealt with optimizing traffic lights – and they won first place for their poster and third place for their presentation to the judges.

RAMgineers team members include:

• Linda Abernathy of San Diego, Calif.
• Damon Butterfras of Goldthwaite
• John “Jack” Carrico of San Angelo – surveying captain
• Nicholas Gillett of San Angelo – head captain
• Hunter Hamilton of San Angelo – concrete bowling captain
• Tyler “TK” Kornegay of George West
• Nora Lopez of Midland
• Brandon Machingura of San Angelo
• Maria Ochoa of San Angelo
• Erica Oritz of San Angelo

RAMgineers with their Concrete Bowling Competition entry The Concrete Bowling Competition was simply for fun and entertainment. The RAMgineers constructed a concrete bowling ball that was decorated by communication student Sydney TerHaar of San Angelo, and scored 49 points in four frames.

The students also participated in a career fair and high-speed practice interview sessions with professional engineers. They were accompanied by RAMgineers faculty advisor, Dr. Anthony Battistini, and their trip was partially funded by a donation from Lon Albert at Reece Albert Construction.