Last year at this time, I was sitting in The Attic Bar & Bistro with a couple of friends and judges from Red Bull and Woodward Copper waiting for the results of the 2017 Red Bull Slopesoakers Design Competition. The competition allowed student teams to design a ski-snowboard course and pond skim to help celebrate the end of snow season at Copper Mountain.
My team, made up of me and three other CU Engineering students, went into the restaurant thinking, “Well, it was worth a shot,” and then hung in the back of the room reveling in the free food and drinks. As a group of CU Boulder student engineers with no experience in anything like this, we were extremely surprised when Red Bull stood up to announce that our team was the winner.
This year, I am competing in the Slopesoakers competition again, and I’ve taken my new love for Red Bull competitions as inspiration to also enter their “Red Bull Can You Make It 2018” challenge. My Colorado team, called “The Jabronies,” is competing to be selected to travel through Europe using nothing but our charm to barter Red Bull as our only currency. My teammates include Will Banfield and Ben Merrill.
To be selected, we need your votes! To view our video and vote for us, click here and support your engineering peers to “Make It!” You can vote every 24 hours through Feb. 20, so don’t forget to do so!
I have CU to thank for cool opportunities like these ones with Red Bull. This is my final semester at CU, and I can’t believe that in May I will graduate with my degree in civil engineering and will be starting work with a large-scale contractor. I’ve been so fortunate during my time at CU to find not only awesome courses and connection to relevant work experiences but also amazing communities, travel opportunities, and awareness of unique competitions like this one. I definitely attribute a lot of these experiences to being a student at CU.
Joe Maguire is a senior civil engineering major from Littleton, Colo.