This summer, Cal Poly students orchestrated one of the largest civil engineering events on campus in more than a decade: the 2025 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) student championships. Over four days, more than 400 competitors from across the country and beyond came together for contests that stretched from campus build sites to concrete canoe races on Lake Nacimiento.
From the cheers at the Timber-Strong build site to the smell of a lakeside crawfish boil, the weekend was the culmination of 18 months of planning, late nights and problem-solving for a 13-member student committee. They had taken the lead on every detail — housing, transportation, safety, fundraising and personal touches like custom sticker trading — to make sure every guest felt welcome.
It began a year and a half earlier, when the group submitted a 26-page proposal to ASCE outlining why Cal Poly should host.
The Road to Race Day
Winning the bid was just the starting gun. The department and college made one thing clear: the event had to be entirely student-run. From that point, the committee operated like an event company in all but name, building timelines, coordinating transportation for competitors and drafting safety plans for official review.
Days were packed with sponsorship calls and site visits; nights ended in long meetings that fine-tuned the final pieces. In the final stretch, some members stayed awake for 45 of 46 hours to keep the schedule on track.
“Our No. 1 priority was the student experience,” said event chair and recent graduate Nick Mackechnie.
Fundraising became its own marathon, with the team quickly realizing they’d need far more than they first imagined. Support from industry partners — and extra generosity from sponsors — pushed them past their goal before the competition began.
By check-in day, they’d recruited about 50 volunteers from across campus. That afternoon, the first trailers rolled in with canoes strapped to the top, gear was unloaded into storage rooms and teams walked the sites where they’d soon compete.
A Weekend in Motion
On campus, Timber-Strong and surveying drew steady crowds as teams built and raced the clock. At Lake Nacimiento, the concrete canoe races felt as much like a festival as a contest: canoes eased into the water, classmates cheered from the shore, and Louisiana Tech hosted a crawfish boil with shrimp and crawfish flown in the night before.
The organizers layered in personal touches that set the tone. Sticker trading became the weekend’s icebreaker. With 54 designs created by committee member Vanessa Pham and delivered on a tight turnaround, teams arrived to a set and traded for the rest — meeting peers from across the country and beyond as they compared collections. “It encouraged everyone to meet new people,” Mackechnie said. “We had people coming from all over the world, and the stickers gave them an easy way to connect.”
Housing helped those connections grow. With competitors based in Poly Canyon Village, students moved to and from venues together, and room assignments paired people from different schools. Evenings turned the dorms into common ground, where conversations and new friendships carried past the day’s events.
“It really built those connections and a sense of camaraderie,” said Ryan Hanlon, a civil engineering senior who served as vice chair.
The Payoff
The weekend closed with a banquet off campus that brought competitors, advisers and supporters into one room. Stories from the races and builds circulated between tables, photos multiplied and applause for award winners lingered.
As the championships wound down, the committee knew the impact went beyond scores and medals. They had proven a student-run team could stage a national event — and do it well. Along the way, they built lasting skills in leadership and logistics.
For Hanlon, the most rewarding part was seeing how it all came together. “We weren’t just putting on a competition,” he said. “We were creating an experience people will remember.” The months of planning also pushed him personally. “I was under a lot of stress, but I learned how to handle it — and how to manage my time and lead my peers. Part of me will always be tied to this event.”
Mackechnie watched the committee grow from classmates he barely knew into people he relied on to pull off the biggest student-run event at Cal Poly in years. Saying goodbye, he admitted, was tough. “Goodbyes will be hard to get over, but I’ll stay in touch. I know the show will go on without me, and now I can just be their friend without the work stuff.”
As the last awards were handed out, Mackechnie thought about everything the team had put into the event. “We worked so hard for this,” he said. “Knowing people are leaving with great memories — that’s what matters.”
By Emily Slater
