1999 Senior Mine Design Project Awards

Steve Richards awarding the dept. plaque to Jaak Daemon

Mackay School of Mines submits winner in Carlson Software mine design contest Carlson Software began sponsoring a National Senior Mine Design competition in 1998. All accredited mining departments at US universities are invited to send one senior project to this competition each year. The first prize is $2,000 plus a copy of SurvCadd 2000. Second prize is $1,000 and third prize is $500 and a copy of ToolPac 4.0. For the 1999 competition, Carlson Software chose an industry panel of judges to review the projects. The 1999 competition was won by Martin Colmenares. Colmenares was a senior mining engineering student at the Mackay School of Mines, Reno, NV. His project consisted of a preliminary feasibility study of an open-pit copper mine in Arizona called the Aguas Calientes project. It can be viewed on the depart-ment's web page at www.unr.edu/mines/mine-eng. The project submitted by Virginia Tech's team of Mathew Eisenmann, Brian Halford and Mathew Snyder took second place. The University of Missouri-Rolla team of Michael T. Stevinson and Scotty Gerbes placed third. Six mining schools were represented this year in the competition. For information on the program, contact Steve Richards at 800-989-5028.

Colmenares wins senior design project award The Pittsburgh Coal Mining Institute of America and SME sponsor an annual National Senior Design Project Award for mining engineering students studying at US universities. This year, the winner of the $1,000 award was Martin Colmenares. He is a senior in the Department of Mining Engineering at the Mackay School of Mines, Reno, NV. The department submitted his senior mine-design project report to the competition. It is entitled The Aquas Calientes Project, a feasibility study of an open-pit copper mine located in Arizona. The project presentation, which he made to industry evaluators, can be viewed on the department's web page at www.unr.edu/mines/mine-eng. Martin could not attend the award ceremony in Pittsburgh, therefore, William Clem, chair of the SME Northern Nevada section, awarded the plaque to Martin at a recent section meeting. Martin is currently working for Granite Rock in the San Francisco Bay area and the company sponsored his travel to the award ceremony in Reno.