ME Students Compete in MCA Challenge Final Four

MCA Student Chapter

The University of Maryland Mechanical Contractors Association (MCA) team headed to Scottsdale, Arizona on March 11^th, 2014 to compete as one of four finalist in the Student Chapter Competition at the Mechanical Contractors Association of America's (MCAA) National Convention.

The MCAA student competition challenges teams to solve engineering problems and this year's challenge involved the partial retrofit of a food processing plant outside of Chicago. During the MCAA National Convention each team will give an oral proposal presentation to five MCAA Career Development Committee members, and the students are evaluated on: the overall quality of the oral presentation; feasibility of project management, organization and schedule; accuracy and completeness of project costs; and answers to the judges’ questions.

The student team, part of the MCA of Metro Washington Student Chapter, included Mechanical Engineering students Steven Krenek, Sam Tupp and John Vernon, and Civil and Environment Engineering student Martin Landsman, who serves as team lead. UMD was selected from among 24 submissions made by MCA student chapters across the U.S. and Canada.

According to the MCA challenge description, "Four teams of young men and women-all hoping for a career with our industry-will demonstrate their knowledge of mechanical systems, the details of an actual project bid proposal and the pressures on a contracting business while coping with the stresses of making a letter-perfect presentation before an audience of hundreds."

The MCAA serves the needs of approximately 2,500 firms in heating, air conditioning, refrigeration, plumbing, piping and mechanical service. MCAA provides its members with high-quality educational materials and programs to attain the highest level of expertise.

For more information on MCAA and the competition, please see their website.

Published March 25, 2014