The Construction Challenge final was held at the Las Vegas Convention Centre during CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2008.

An Oklahoma team won the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM)-initiated Construction Challenge final held at the CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2008 in Las Vegas last week.

Perry High School of Perry, Oklahoma, represented by Amy Bieberdorf, Kelsey Cave, Evan Williams, Cassandra Bratcher, Daniel Cross, Dakota Johnson and Trevor Kukuk, beat over 50 teams to win a USD2,000 scholarship and a computer each. The team was sponsored by Ditch Witch.

Team member Cave says: "We learned time management and problem-solving skills, and we logged lots of hours after school to get ready."

The team's manager, technical education teacher Jeff Zagar, says each team member spent on average 112 hours preparing for the "Road Warrior" challenge.

The event was held from 11-13 March at the Las Vegas Convention Centre.

The teenagers built pieces of "construction equipment", debated on infrastructure issues and created interactive educational products to promote the construction industry.

The winning team from Perry High School of Perry, Oklahoma.

Seven teams won titles and prizes. The team that won third place overall was the only all-girl team in the competition and also took out first place in two of the three challenges, "dialogue" and "product development". The girls from West Geauga High School, Chesterland, Ohio, sponsored by Caterpillar Inc, produced a colouring book for young girls, which will now be used by the construction industry as an educational tool to introduce youth to careers in the industry.

The competition comprised three challenges. For "infrastructure dialogue", teams were randomly assigned to answer a policy-related question on infrastructure issues. Under the "product development" challenge, teams researched, designed and developed an interactive educational resource to promote the construction industry. In "road warrior", teams competed to move the most gravel across an infrastructure they built together, using their team-built equipment.

AEM senior vice president Al Cervero says the response from the students was "better than [AEM] dreamed of" when the project took off 17 months ago.

"Not only were CONEXPO-CON/AGG attendees checking out the challenges, they were talking about the need to increase awareness of the industry and the great jobs that are available. They were stunned by the creativity and knowledge on display this week by all the teams."

According to AEM, the construction industry will create over 1 million new jobs by 2012.

For a list of the winners, go to:
http://web.mac.com/tricom1234/Construction_Challenge_Finals/Winning_Teams.html

To see more photos from the event, visit:
www.constructionchallenge.org/