The 2026 GT-ASCE Sustainable Solutions team, led by Sowmithra Prakash, fifth from left, are heading to the National ASCE student competition at Fairmont State University in June. (Photo courtesy GT-ASCE)
The Georgia Tech chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) had a successful showing at the 2026 Southeastern ASCE Student Symposium, winning five first place awards, two second place, and one third place showing. GT-ASCE finished fourth overall out of 19 teams competing.
The symposium, held in March at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, brought students from universities around the Southeast together to compete in a variety of civil engineering-related events.
The GT-ASCE Sustainable Solutions team garnered a perfect “100” score for their entry in the competition, marking the fourth win in this category in a streak that began in 2023.
The Sustainable Solutions Competition challenges students to develop a strong understanding of sustainability and to incorporate sustainability into everyday engineering problems in creative ways.
In this year’s competition, the teams were given a challenge: the “Civil Engineering Computing Corporation” is building a data center along the banks of the Big Brown River in the fictional “City of ASCE.” The teams were tasked with creating a water cooling system and required to use the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure’s Envision framework to achieve sustainability goals.
According to team captain Sowmithra Prakash, the team put in 675 hours to design a water-based cooling system for four 120,000 square feet buildings and factored in natural resource use and community well-being. She credited the long hours spent on the project with her team’s confident presentation.
“Coming into it, I knew there was already going to be a big learning curve, but getting thrown a difficult prompt was not an easy obstacle to overcome,” Prakash said. “We learned the power of networking and simply just reaching out to see who could help us understand the world of data centers and cooling systems. Ultimately, we found people who dedicated spending time with us at least twice a month, which helped us understand the data center world a bit better. I’m extremely proud of the team for working hard.”
The Sustainable Solutions team advances to the ASCE Civil Engineering Student Championships at Fairmont State University in June where they will try to repeat last year’s national competition win.
Faculty advisor and Professor of the Practice Fred Meyer praised the 61 CEE students who made the trek to the conference and noted that the Timber Strong team delivered Tech’s best finish ever in the category and the Steel Bridge team’s third place finish was “one of the best results we’ve achieved in recent years in a field of tough competitors.”
“Our students were great ambassadors of Georgia Tech throughout the competition,” said Meyer. “Despite several challenges, they demonstrated tremendous spirit, camaraderie, and a desire to compete and win. I could not have been prouder of them.”
Here are the results from the events in which GT-ASCE placed in the top three:
First Place:
- Sustainable Solutions, led by Sowmithra Prakash
- T-Shirt Design, led by Nicole Wang
- Muddy Waters, led by Grace Jiang
- FE Problem Solving, led by Jalen Cunanan
- 3-D Printing, led by Ty Vasquez
Second Place:
- Timber Strong, led by Andy Lainez
- Solutioneering, led by Grace Jiang
Third Place:
- Steel Bridge, led by Peter Grafstein
The GT-ASCE Timber Strong team finished second in this year's regional competition, their best score ever in this category. (Photo courtesy GT-ASCE)
The GT-ASCE Steel Bridge team's third-place finish was one of the best in the last few years. (Photo courtesy GT-ASCE)