Competition Teams & Clubs

Paddles up! The American Society of Civil Engineers Concrete Canoe Competition is an elite project to design and construct a river-worthy canoe from concrete. Strong and agile, this canoe will be tested for maneuverability and speed as it is rowed by team members in slalom and sprint races.

Through the course of this competition, team members will develop and test a lightweight concrete mixture and design a hydrodynamic canoe hull to compete on race day. Individuals are exposed to multiple elements of concrete design including mixture proportioning, lightweight reinforcement methods, and formwork construction. Additionally, team members will conduct strength tests on concrete specimens and expand their knowledge of material mechanics.

As a staple of civil engineering programs across the nation, the ASCE Concrete Canoe Competition provides hands-on experience in the world of construction management and builds awareness of the versatility of concrete. Furthermore, the team strives to implement the University’s Creationeering model with excellence to engineer innovative designs, foster professional and efficient team dynamics, and rely upon the Creator for inspiration!

Baja SAE challenges engineering students to design and build an off-road vehicle that will withstand rough terrain and in some competitions water. As in real work situations, these future engineers work together as a team to discover and resolve technical challenges in design, testing, and manufacturing, as well as administrative and financial issues.

The most rugged of all the competitions, Baja SAE also gives students the first-hand challenge of pursuing their passion while managing real-life demands and priorities. Each team’s goal is to design and build a prototype of an all-weather, rugged, single-seat, off-road recreational vehicle intended for sale to the nonprofessional off-road enthusiast.

At Liberty’s chapter of Baja SAE, the mission is to not only produce the best vehicle possible but also take it to yearly competitions and perform to a higher standard each time. The team is built to give students hands-on experience, that allows them to successfully collaborate on a team, gain management skills, focus on a final goal, and provide work that gives glory to God.

Liberty Motorsports is a competition team competing in the Formula SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Electric Competition in Fontana California. Formula SAE is a collegiate design challenge in which university students are tasked with designing and manufacturing a Formula One-style race car that they will compete with universities from around the world in events testing speed, durability, endurance, cost, and creativity.

Formula SAE Electric cars are capable of 0-60 mph in under 3.5 seconds thanks to the instant torque from the electric motors.

Liberty Motorsports consists of over fifty students from multiple disciplines including mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer engineering, business marketing, project management, and strategic communications. Our team has established strategic partnerships with Hendrick Motorsports, Lynchburg Machining, Systems Engineering and Manufacturing, and Blue Origin to help make this program possible. Liberty Motorsports strives to uphold a culture of excellence and inspire innovation in order to develop the next generation of high-performing engineers who honor and glorify God.

Liberty Orbit is a program that focuses on the study of space in low-Earth orbit. This research involves the research, design, and manufacturing of ThinSats and CubeSats to be sent into space to collect data, anywhere from 100-800 km.

We have a partnership with NASA and the Virginia Space Grant Consortium that allows our team to launch from NASA Wallops to low-Earth orbit as a free-flying satellite or to the International Space Station. Our team gains hands-on experience in building small-scale satellites through our sub-systems, which consist of casing and integration, communications and sensors, a science payload, and power.

Our main goal is to bring experience to students, expand our understanding of space, and bring glory to God in doing so with our small-sat constellation.

Faculty Sponsor
Dr. Tate Fonville 
tfonville1@liberty.edu 

Student Leader
Sara Schweitzer
snschweitzer@liberty.edu

Liberty University’s motto is “Training Champions For Christ” and Liberty Rocketry is taking this motto to heart. The members of this team are willing to take valuable hours out of their week, despite their not-so-easy engineering courses, to innovate, design, and build high-power rockets for the purpose of becoming a Champion For Christ. 

We compete in the Spaceport America Cup, the world’s largest intercollegiate rocket engineering conference and competition in Las Cruces, New Mexico every year.

Spaceport America has competition categories for rockets constructed to soar to 10,000ft and 30,000ft as well as categories for rockets built from commercial parts or experimental student-developed components.

Liberty Rocketry placed 39^th out of 158 teams in their first year competing, besting schools with established aerospace engineering programs such as Mississippi State (40th), Michigan State (62nd), and Virginia Tech (78th). Although they have only competed in the 10,000ft category thus far, the team is continuing to push toward the 30,000ft and experimental competition categories.

As part of the team, you can work in rocket engine design, aerodynamic design, flight computer and scientific payload design, and recovery systems. Members of the team will gain hands-on technical experience that will prepare them for the workforce. You will be able to follow your work from the design table, to manufacturing, and finally to the launch pad.

The mission of the Student Steel Bridge Competition Team is to challenge students to extend their classroom knowledge to a practical and hands-on steel-design project that grows their interpersonal and professional skills, encourages innovation, and fosters impactful relationships between students and industry professionals.

The steel bridge team allows the student to challenge themselves in all aspects of steel design and structural analysis. A team member can learn how to weld and fabricate a variety of things.

Faculty Advisor
Bryon Ringley
bfringley@liberty.edu

Student Leader
Joel Harkness
jharkness1@liberty.edu

Liberty University’s Theme Park Engineering club and competition team focuses on all aspects of engineering theme park attractions and rollercoasters. As a competition team, we compete in the Ryerson Invitational Thrill Design Competition, which focuses both on the technical and creative sides of theme park engineering, including force analyses, vector, force, and geometric-based coaster design, and structural engineering.

In addition to the competition, we will boast an array of unique coaster designs that will be designed and built by students. Ultimately, our team strives to infiltrate the theme park industry as a force for God and works to put Him first in all we do.

Liberty University Theme Park Engineering is also partnered with the Themed Entertainment Association as an official NextGen Club.

VEX Robotics is a nationally recognized robotics competition in which students present innovative solutions to complex problems.

Our Robotics Team uses VEX V5 materials and competes with other universities to prove themselves. Our team helps students develop problem-solving skills, teamwork, and creative thinking. Building these robots requires members to be flexible in their approach to design, as solutions often do not work the first time.

Overall, VEX provides students with an opportunity to have fun building, innovating, and competing in a challenging environment that aids them in developing and honing their engineering skills.

Faculty Advisor
Dr. Bae 
kkbae@liberty.edu

Student Leader
Caleb Summy
 cdsummy@liberty.edu

Human Exploration Rover Challenge

Faculty Advisor
Dr. Tate Fonville
tfonville1@liberty.edu

Student Leader
Ben Lukasik
blukasiak@liberty.edu

“The word of God is alive and powerful. Sharper than any two-edged sword.” Each time we read God’s Word, there is growth and new understanding. Scripture memorization in Abide 15:4 provides a setting to not only read, but to dive deeply and know one passage or book, understanding the context of each verse.

Meeting for an hour once a week, Abide 15:4 is a Bible memory club focused on giving students the opportunity to grow together in their faith through immersion in the Word. Abide gives students the structure to help them reach their memorization goals. We provide each student with an accountability partner and track each student’s goals to optimize their results. We want to meditate on the word, so that it shapes our thoughts, guards our heart, and influences every decision we make.

Students will be provided a setting and a community where God’s word is the focal point of our lives. Each meeting is comprised of three sections: socialization/games, recitation of verses, and a devotional. Previous semesters (Fall 2021) we memorized Matthew 2 & 3 by Christmas with birth of Christ, and (Spring 2022) we memorized the ending of Matthew 27 & Matthew 28 by Easter with the Easter story .

Each semester, we organize a Bible recitation event during club meetings in order to encourage and celebrate those who have committed the time and scripture to memory. We look forward to seeing you there!

Faculty Advisor
Feng Wang
fwang@liberty.edu

Student Leader
Aaron Michael Beckley
abeckley@liberty.edu

Chair
Dr. Feng Wang
fwang@liberty.edu

The purpose of ASCE is to inform, engage and develop students’ interests in Civil Engineering.

This student chapter seeks to provide outlets where students can exercise and challenge their innovative ideas outside the classroom (community service, national competitions, missions trips), offer sources for networking and connections, and present guest speakers to inform members about different opportunities in the Civil Engineering field.

The Engineering Missions and Research Club (EMRC) aims at providing students opportunities to combine their engineering skills with relevant research and their passion to serve, in order to advance solutions for the less privileged. It is a platform for students to steward their God-given passions, interests, and skill sets for the global advancement of God’s kingdom.

The club strives to produce humanitarian and sustainable solutions in critical areas such as food, water, energy, communication, or shelter, while utilizing local resources. Some of the club’s projects have involved researching, prototyping, and manufacturing medical prosthetic components, a low-cost brick press, a solar power grid for a church in Venezuela, and a water detection system to help drill wells in Uganda.

The High-Performance Computing Club serves to encourage students in the fields of engineering and computing to develop skills relevant to High-Performance Computers (HPC) such as Linux, data management, parallel programming, and simulation software.

The short-term goal of this club is to teach the members how to build a computing cluster, set up the operating system, and run simulations.

The HPC Club will begin by first teaching students how to use HPC clusters optimally. These projects will be simple, such as: calculating digits of pi or calculating prime numbers. The purpose of these first projects is to educate more students on how to use high-performance computing. Parallel to these educational tutorials, we can have more experienced students run more complicated projects on the cluster. Eventually, we want to do actual groundbreaking research, such as scientifically proving the events in genesis or training Artificial Intelligence, however before we can run, we must walk.

Liberty Space is a Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) Chapter. SEDS is an international student organization whose purpose is to promote space exploration and development through educational and engineering projects.

SEDS is fostering the development of future leaders and contributors in the expanding space industry.

Our mission as the Liberty Women in STEM Club is to build a community that fosters relationships characterized by mutual encouragement and holistic growth among women in STEM fields as we seek to honor Christ through our career pursuits.

Most of our meetings feature women who have walked this path before us and can offer advice on how to live a godly life as women in STEM fields. We also provide the opportunity to make connections with other female students in STEM majors. Our goal is to provide a space where we can complement the naturally competitive nature of STEM majors with a community that emphasizes gospel-centered friendships.

As this community continues to flourish in our club and at Liberty, our hope is that the gospel will transform the way that we relate to one another so that our daily way of life will bear witness to the watching world of the goodness of God both now and in our future careers.

Faculty Advisor
Dr. Kimberly Mitchell 
kamitchell@liberty.edu

Student Leader
Emma Anderson 
elanderson3@liberty.edu

For engineering students to have an outlet to learn how to build and control robots, to have fun, to meet other engineers, to gain exposure to different technologies, and to allow them to apply what they have learned in the classroom to real-world experiences.