The Walla Walla University Engineers Without Borders (EWB) club’s concrete workshop brought its members together to learn about the history, design, and analysis of concrete beams under the instruction of Louie Yaw, professor of engineering.

EWB club member Carena Tomas said she learned all about the different types of rebar and the effects of its various configurations within concrete. As a commonly used building material, understanding how to work with and properly utilize concrete can be a very important skill. This workshop taught students all about both the theory behind a good concrete structure and how to actually make one by mixing and pouring concrete.

EWB works to design projects that improve the quality of life for communities, and each quarter the WWU chapter holds a workshop aimed at teaching students skills that would be useful for those projects. EWB club president Caleb Snarr said they specifically decided on a concrete workshop because it would provide helpful knowledge in the civil discipline which the group of mostly mechanical engineers would benefit from greatly.

Understanding how to pour a concrete base would also be a useful skill for anyone planning to join the EWB Manda Project. EWB is working with a community in Manda, Tanzania, to design a solar powered water pump that will provide nearly 5,000 people with clean water. Professor of engineering and EWB club sponsor Natalie Smith-Gray said creating a solid concrete structure for the solar panels will be an important step in developing this system.

The concrete beams from this workshop were left to cure for a couple weeks before the EWB club members met back up to test their reinforced concrete beams and watch them get crushed.

For more information about the WWU School of Engineering, go to wallawalla.edu/engineering. To keep up with future EWB events and ongoing projects, visit ewb-wwu.org.

Posted Dec. 11, 2024