CANstruction 2008 TCC Engineering Club The CANstructures will be on display at the Selden Arcade in downtown Norfolk until Monday, November 24. Stop by to see our castle and the other 17 structures if you can! Our castle used an impressive 12,000 cans of food and weighed 13,000 lb (6.5 tons)! This year’s local CANstruction had a theme based on the Broadway musical “Spam-a-lot” which is based on the movie “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”

CANstruction is a design/build competition where engineering and architecture firms (and student groups) build huge creative structures out of canned food items. The structures are on display for couple of weeks and then the food is donated to the local food bank. CANstruction takes place in about 100 cities worldwide and has taken place in Hampton Roads for the last 11 years. This is the 10^th year in which the TCC Engineering Club has competed. Our team is generously supported by Farm Fresh.

TCC Engineering Club members just after finishing the castle. About 25 TCC engineering students were involved.	The front view of the castle. We were particularly pleased with the self-supporting keyed arch.	A close-up of the arch. The arech used twenty five 7.2 degree wedges between tuna cans. Once the tuna cans and wedges were locked in place, it was able to support hundreds of pounds of food above it.
		Bruce MacCalls (Farm Fresh), Steve Ezzell (TCC Engineering Faculty), Paul Gordy (TCC Engineering Faculty), Susan Mayo (Farm Fresh), Shannan (Farm Fresh), Dr. Quinton Bullock (TCC Provost))
Club members spent three weeks working out the design details on campus. We cut hundreds of cardboard templates to put between layers of cans.	A temporary form was used to support the arch before it was built.	We finally tested the arch just two days before the competition. We held our breath as we pulled out the support. It held!
We loaded TCC's truck with 13,000 lb of cans to transport them to Norfolk for the competition.	We had 6 hours to build our structure on the night of the competition.	The towers and walls start to grow.
“Yosemite Spam” Hanbury Evans Wright Vlattas and Company Award: “Structural Ingenuity”	“We CAN make it through” (related to the recent Wall Street crash) Clark Nexsen Award: Best Use of Labels	“Cattle-pult” HBA Architecture & Interior Design Award: Juror’s Favorite
“Fleadom From Hunger – The Greatest Show on Earth” (Flea Circus) Lyle Design Architects Award: Best Meal	“All AmeriCAN Kitchen” MMM Design Group Award: Honorable Mention	“Green Eggs and Spam” Paul Finch & Associates, P.C. Award: Honorable Mention
“Blowing Up Hunger: One Can at a Time” (Based on the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”) Kimley-Horn & Associates, Inc.	“The Del Monte Python” AECOM Virginia Beach	“CANucopia” DJG, Inc.
“We Eat Ham and Jam and Spam A Lot Crockpot” ODU Student Art League	“Stomping Out Hunger” Retnauer Design Group	“Stick it to Hunger” (based on the video game HALO) Old Dominion University American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
“United We Spam” Hampton University Department of Architecture	“Shielding America” Stroud Pence & Associates, Ltd.	“We CAN Bridge the Hunger Gap” RRMM Architects
“Catapulted Cow, It’s what’s for dinner” Moseley Architects	“A single slice of Spam is all we need…” Landmark Design Group	“A single slice of Spam is all we need…” Landmark Design Group

Hampton Road CANstruction website
National CANstruction website
Contact Paul Gordy, ASEE Model Design Competition Coordinator, at PGordy@tcc.edu for more information.