With faces red from the cold and brows furrowed in concentration, participants in the First Cyclone Bible Fellowship Snow Sculpting Contest used containers, cardboard supports, food coloring and spoons to sculpt snow.

Participants constructed famous buildings, from the Chrysler Building to the Eiffel Tower, in an effort to win $100, $75 or $50. The contest took place at Clyde Williams Field Saturday afternoon.

The vision behind the winning sculpture, the Great Wall of China, came from firsthand experience.

“I went to China last summer,” said Ami Lapine of the winning team. Lapine works in Ames and graduated from Iowa State last year.

Wendy Faber, junior in food science, was also a member of the winning group. Faber brought cocoa powder to make the team’s snow blocks look like the real thing.

One member of the team constructing Hilton Coliseum revealed the circumstances that led to the decision to sculpt the ISU arena.

“Our pile [of snow] mildly resembled it already,” said Carissa Roenfeldt, junior in exercise sport science and marketing. “And we thought it would be easy.”

David Hyman, sophomore in animal science, brought along a picture of St. Basil’s Cathedral to help his team take second place.

“We wanted something to hopefully get us a victory,” he said.

Teams were given from 1 p.m. until 3 p.m. to complete their creations.

However, the third-place team of Darian Willette, freshman in animal ecology, Demian Willette, freshman in biology, and Ashley Green, freshman in forestry, got a later start on their monster piece. The $50 prize was netted by creating the Chrysler Building in New York, complete with Godzilla attacking it.

Different reasons motivated participants to bundle up and form snow into recognizable buildings.

“We are poor college kids who want money,” said Kate Jones, freshman in graphic design, who constructed the Eiffel Tower.

The prizes awarded at the contest were funded through registration fees, the group’s monthly budget and private donations.