Walsh Sponsors Student Competition

April 2009

On Saturday, April 5, Walsh sponsored the Wastewater Treatment Competition (aka: the Environmental Competition) at the 2009 ASCE Great Lakes Regional Conference at Notre Dame. For this event, students designed, built and operated a water treatment system using only commonly available household items. The students were given 30 minutes to construct the system, and then they operated it for 45 minutes to treat a container of water contaminated with organic and inorganic matter. The treated water was then tested for color, pH, and turbidity. Competition winners were selected based on the efficiency of their system, the technical design, the quality of water produced, and how well they worked together as a team. Six Walsh Group employees served as competition judges.

Teams from several schools competed in the event. Here is how they placed:

“Events like this are much better than career fairs for meeting potential recruits and having a real impact at our target schools,” said Duane Petersen, Walsh Group Project Manager and competition judge. “These are students who are doing more than just showing up for class, and we get to see how they think on their feet, how they speak in public, and how they work together in teams.“

The Great Lakes Regional Conference is also home to the Steel Bridge and Concrete Canoe competitions, and Walsh proudly sponsored teams from University of Illinois, Bradley University and University of Michigan for these events as well. Next year’s conference will be held at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and we are already looking forward to it.

Click here to see the complete rankings