"US Air Force Academy"
(18th place overall; 11th in paper; 14th in presentation; 16th in product)

Presentation:

The United States Air Force Academy represented the Rocky Mountain Conference and made their second national appearance.

The Air Force relied on 4 men to make their presentation.  The presenters wore service dress and the presentation was business oriented.  The team used 1 screen and did not include any videos.

After a brief introduction, the team provided an explanation for their theme.   They began by outlining their goals and started with the project management and schedule.  

The team explained how they used Prolines to improve their hull’s performance and gave the final specifications of their design.  They concluded that the critical load occurred during the two man sprint race.  Then it was on to concrete mix design.  

The team explained their rationale for using fly ash and described how they selected their reinforcement scheme.  They outlined their material tests conducted to insure that the selected design met their criteria.

The team explained how they constructed their form and used shrink wrap to remove their canoe from the mold.  Then they explained how they cured and finished their boat.  After summarizing the time spent on the project, the team brought their presentation to a good conclusion. 

 Questions and Comments:  

• What changes did you make in your management approach to improve your delivery?
• How would you modify your mix to reduce weight so that your canoe would be neutrally buoyant?
• There was a break in your project schedule and there should be a continuous critical path.
• How did you evaluate the workability of your mix?
• Why didn’t you raise the air content of your mix to make it lighter?
• Did you perform any manual calculations to verify your FEA?

Product:

   The U.S. Air Force Academy fielded "Zoomie."
Length: 20.0'
Weight: 250 lb
Color: gray

The Air Force’s hull was reinforced using 2 layers of fiberglass scrim.  Matrix materials included poraver.  The hull featured an asymmetric shape and a round bottom.  The team used shrink wrap to facilitate form removal and included concrete inlays in their design.  The name of the canoe was selected following the tradition of giving a nickname to cadets and the “00” was included to reflect the current graduation class (’08).

Vital Statistics