After the success of the first Centennial Campus Challenge, the planning committee is bringing even more to this year’s event.  

The committee’s co-chair, Chris Millns, a senior in textile engineering, described the Challenge as “a weeklong campout event to bring the engineering community together.”

“It really is a lot of fun,” he said. “You sleep there, wake up, and just walk to class.”

However, the scope of the event is larger than upperclassmen engineers with classes on Centennial Campus, according to John Petitte, a senior in chemical engineering and the other co-chair heading up the event.

“My team had a guy from CHASS,” he said. “You don’t have to have classes there.”

The event has goals that span all of campus.

Victor Prince, a junior in materials science and engineering, attended the Challenge last year and saw how the event focuses on Centennial Campus itself.

“We do [the Challenge] because we don’t really have any events on Centennial Campus,” Prince said. Even Engineering Week takes place on Main Campus, he said.

Petitte wants to see the Challenge open up Centennial Campus for everyone at the University as a place to do more than go to class.

“[The Challenge is] a way to get people on Centennial Campus for the first time doing something other than work,” he said.

Planners predict many improvements this year, especially with three times the funding, according to Prince. This year will be “bigger and better,” he said.

The Challenge still encountered difficulties, according to Petitte.

Many wondered if economic troubles would limit sponsorship, but the Engineering Foundation worked with students and different corporations such as Skanska and Milliken to make the Challenge possible, Millns said.  

“It shows how excited the industry is” about the event, he said.

Logistical hurdles also posed a problem, according to Peter Venema, a senior in Chemical Engineering.

The committee worked to accumulate food, materials, administrative approval for the camp-out, and the involvement of other engineering organizations on campus, Venema said.

The latter is even easier, according to Prince, because organizations can provide manpower while sponsorship covers all costs. As corporations are already physically present on campus, “Centennial Campus is a great fit” for their support, Prince said.

With the help of the Union Activities Board and Campus Recreation in addition to engineering clubs, the Challenge boasts a full agenda.  

Events include a Carnival Day with inflatables and a rock-wall; a Pig Pickin’ with live music; a Field Day full of sports; tours of Engineering Building III; and a concluding ball, with a jazz band, ice sculpture, chocolate fountain, and the final awards ceremony.

Both competitions, the Greatest Engineer’s Challenge and Centennial Campus Challenge, promise prizes worth $500, according to Petitte.

The former is an “engineering design competition,” Millns said.

“It was really cool to see different ideas for solving the problem,” Venema said of last year’s Greatest Engineer’s Challenge.

“Every night, we give you random stuff, and you make something cool out of it according to our specifications,”  Petitte said.

The second competition involves a series of checkpoints for campers, which all go into a specific formula for calculating the winner.  

When not competing, every night will include food and “the first legal campfires [on campus] since the nineties,” said Petitte. The committee worked with the fire marshal, grounds staff, and police to ensure the campfires will be allowed, according to Millns.

Ultimately, all the preparations look to make the Challenge a place where “students can come out and have a good time,” Venema said.