"University of Wisconsin - Platteville"
(9th place overall; 20th in paper; 12th in presentation; 7th in product)

Anthony P. Crest Award for Innovation

Presentation:

The University of Wisconsin - Platteville represented the Mid-West Conference and made their third consecutive national appearance.

UW-Platteville relied on 3 people to make their presentation; 2 men and 1 woman.  The presenters were dressed in suits and the presentation was business oriented.  The team used 1 screen and did not include any video.

The team introduced themselves and gave an outline of their presentation.  They presented some background about their school and the rational behind their theme.

They outlined the project management and organization and elaborated on how they met their goals.  Then it was on to hull design.

The team elaborated on the hydrodynamic characteristics of their hull design.  Then they presented their structural analysis and detailed how they employed a 3-D analysis.  They said that the greatest service load occurs during the three person races.

Finally, the team detailed the salient features of their design and summarized their accomplishments.

Questions and Comments:

• How did you determine that cracks occurred due to the shrinkage of your mold?
• Were you concerned with durability while producing such as lightweight canoe?
• Did you encounter any problems while transporting your model from the CAD to the finite element package?
• Why did you assume 210 lb for all of your paddlers?
• Did you take the weight of the team into consideration when removing the deadwood from the bow?
• Why did you want to avoid larger particle size?
• What techniques were used to construct the bow and stern sections on your female mold?
• Did you do some testing to determine where the expansion joints on your mold should be located?
• Were these locations explored when you constructed and tested your 8’ model?

Note: The team was the first to incorporate contraction joints in their mold to eliminate cracks due to mold shrinkage… but this was not emphasized along with canoe construction in their presentation.

Product:

The University of Wisconsin - Platteville fielded "Whiskey Tech."
Length: 19' 9"
Weight: 125.5 lb
Color: white and red

The team employed two layers of fiberglass scrim to reinforce their hull and met the sieve requirement by using expanded glass granules and 3M glass bubbles.  They added free fibers to their mix to increase strength and had the lightest entry at the national competition. 

Vital Statistics