Iowa State Wins 2022 Electrical Contracting Innovation Challenge
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Iowa State Wins 2022 Electrical Contracting Innovation Challenge
Iowa State University won the 2022 Electrical Contracting Innovation Challenge (ECIC). Wayne State University took home second prize, and Pennsylvania State University won third place. This year’s ECIC was the 14th annual challenge hosted by ELECTRI International. The students were invited to NECA 2022 Austin to present their projects. They talked listeners through their bids and how they worked with NECA contractors and industry partners. Scores were determined by participants’ work on the proposal and oral portions equally.
This challenge is designed to introduce students to the electrical contracting industry.
“The Electrical contracting industry has so much to offer,” said Josh Bone, executive director of ELECTRI International, in his opening remarks before the presentations. Students worked to design a project chosen by ELECTRI and were challenged to virtually design and construct an innovative electrical system to meet their customer’s needs.
Each student team worked with their local NECA chapter and contractors to “to deliver a detailed bid package to ‘Contractor X’ for a new university student center that will be created using a Design-Bid-Build project delivery method.” They received construction documents and resources to complete an initial electrical bid package. The lowest qualified bid will receive the project. Trimble was a partner of the ECIC, and students received 10 hours of Accubid training.
Wayne State worked with Superior Electric Great Lakes Co., Penn State worked with five NECA contractors in their area and Iowa State worked with multiple contractors.
Iowa State took home a prize of $4,000 (plus an extra $5,000 from Trimble for winning best oral presentation), Wayne State won $3,000 and Penn State received $2,000.
There was a video competition portion that had three finalists: Illinois Institute of Technology, Kennesaw State University and Wayne State University. Videos could be no longer than three minutes while creatively summarizing the project. Attendees to the challenge saw and voted on the winners. Wayne State won $1,000, Kennesaw State won $750 and Illinois Institute of Technology won $500.
Other prizes included best presenter (Luke Eggers from Iowa State), best social media post (Wayne State), best estimation (Iowa State) and most innovative electrical design (Iowa State).