Few high schoolers would voluntarily decide to learn about water and transportation infrastructure, much less devote 50 odd hours to it. But if the reward is a week-long trip to Las Vegas, Nevada, it is worthwhile in the eyes of junior Connor Hegg.
Hegg competed in the 3rd annual AEM Construction Challenge sponsored by Volvo Construction Equipment, with five other students from Massanutten Regional Governor’s school, where he is also a student. The Construction Challenge aims to encourage and educate students about potential careers in construction. MRGS’s six-person team placed second at the regional competition in Richmond, securing a spot at the national competition in Vegas.
“For the Regional competition we had to construct a roadway infrastructure, film a public service announcement, and build a water filtration type thing,” Hegg said. “I was extremely excited [when we placed second].”
MRGS was sponsored by the German construction company Leibherr for the national competition. The championship focused heavily on transportation infrastructure. Teams participated in a “Road Rumble” where they had to construct a small remote controlled car that could travel over potholes, a “mountain” with speed bumps, and a bridge followed by tight turns. Each road had a maximum point allotment of 20, or ten points for each completed run. Teams received ten points for each road that was successfully traversed, and had two trials for each road. Team MRGS totaled 50 points, just missing a perfect 60 because of the mountain.
“[The car] did surprisingly well. It struggled with the mountain and sharp turns,” Hegg said.
The secondary portion of the competition was the gameshow “H2Oh Yeah!”. The gameshow consisted of questions pertaining to water infrastructure, and “mini-challenges” after every five questions. The mini-challenges usually involved a bit of quick thinking construction. Each team contributed questions to be asked during the gameshow, which Hegg thinks may have lead to some unfair advantages.
“We did very well. We made it to the second round and tied for fourth,” Hegg said, visibly excited about the results. “I definitely would have had better questions [in the gameshow]. Some teams had much easier questions than others.”
Overall team MRGS placed tenth out of 24 teams, a respectable outcome in Hegg’s opinion.
“I’m satisfied with tenth. I mean, we got a free trip, had fun, and learned a lot. It was definitely worthwhile,” Hegg said.
Hegg hopes to participate in the AEM challenge next year, and is extremely grateful for the opportunity.
“It was the experience of a lifetime. One week was not enough.”
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