The Future Contractors Scholarship launched in 2018, encouraging students to consider a degree and career focused in the construction industry. CCIS selected 8 finalists for the 2022 spring scholarship to be voted on. The public had the opportunity to choose whose essay was their favorite. The public voting poll was open for one week, with Kyle Moring being selected as the winner of the $750 award.
Kyle Moring is a senior at Oregon State University where he is working towards a degree in Construction Engineering Management. What Kyle enjoys most about his studies is collaborating with his peers and professors. In his free time, he is a part of the Oregon State Steel Bridge Club, the Kappa Omicron Chapter of Phi Gamma Delta, and his hobbies include playing soccer, lifting weights, hiking and woodworking.
If you know of a future contractor entering or currently attending college/university, encourage them to apply to our current CCIS Future Contractor Scholarship at www.ccisbonds.com/scholarship.
Read Kyle's essay, here:
Traditionally homes and commercial buildings are made with large numbers of manpower, equipment, and resources. It takes roughly six weeks to frame, but 3D printing the structure of a home is typically less than one week. The excessive amounts of fossil fuels used to transport labor and materials like lumber and metal are a drain on the earth’s reserves, but 3D printing would decrease the necessary fossil fuels used in transportation. The industry standard of wood or metal framing is already being phased out with the use of structural 3D printing, yet the mixtures used in traditional concrete create unnecessary delays. One problem in the 3D printing method used by Precision Builders and Contracting out of Florida is the use of traditional cement mixes. This causes delays because of irregularly shaped rocks being stuck and damaging equipment. A facility in the Netherlands is researching a calcium and toilet paper-based mix extracted from sewage that would provide a better consistency to 3D print with, avoiding as costly damages to equipment and saving time in construction. Such a mix avoids the need for large aggregate pieces that currently get stuck in and slow down the 3D printers used in America. Enormous amounts of time and money are spent on repairing damaged concrete made from Portland cement, water, and aggregate. Traditional concrete develops hairline fractures over time, and this leads to progressive damage. This cycle could be broken by the development of special bacteria from the University of Bath in England. Their bacteria mix, when applied to water, oxygen, and an alkaline environment, would cause the bacteria to multiply and produce a limestone by-product, sealing the cracks as they form. The problem of hairline fractures could be phased out by using the main ingredients of self-healing concrete mixtures including sand, gel, and bacteria. This would save time, energy, and resources in repairs and replacements and lead to less of a need for extraction and refinement of aggregate from the earth’s crust. Typically, the refinement, extraction and transportation process relies on fossil fuels, and an opportunity like self-healing concrete would reduce the need for replacement concrete. Finally, the construction industry relies heavily on plastics for everything from sealants to insulation, much of which ends up in landfills. Other ways of dealing with the waste products include recycling, incineration, or integration into fill dirt. This presents an economic and environmental problem because many plastics do not get recycled ending up in the oceans, and landfills cause groundwater pollution through the liquid leachate. In response to this problem, Harvard University’s Wyss institute has produced a bioplastic out of leftover shrimp shells, otherwise known as cuticle. This new product is just as strong as aluminum and only half the weight. The need for sustainable materials is met by such innovations, yet the production of shrimp or similar natural alternatives must be scaled up to meet the market demands for a sustainable alternative to plastic.