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ASCE News, August, 2000 Proving that with enough engineering ingenuity concrete can indeed be made to float, civil engineering students from Clemson University won the 2000 National Concrete Canoe Competition, repeating their triumph of the previous year. Hosted by the Colorado School of Mines and sponsored by ASCE and Master Builders, Inc., of Cleveland, the 13th annual competition was held in Lakewood, Colorado, at Big Soda Lake on June 24-26. Racing a concrete canoe they had designed and built and then marketed to a panel of judges, Clemson triumphed over 25 other teams-and the laws of physics-with their 21 ft, 100 lb vessel. Named Instinct, the winning canoe was constructed of a concrete mix with lightweight aggregates and reinforced with polypropylene mesh.
Members of the winning Clemson University team pose with Instinct, the 21ft, 100 lb concrete canoe that they designed and paddled to their second consecutive national title in this year's competition, held in Lakewood, Colorado. By placing first overall, the team earned $5,000 in scholarships awarded by Master Builders and took possession of this year's "best-boat bragging rights." The team from Oklahoma State University took second place overall and received a $2,500 scholarship and a trophy. A $1,500 scholarship and a trophy went to the Florida Institute of Technology for finishing third overall. Michigan State University and the University of Washington received plaques for finishing, respectively, fourth and fifth.
Elia Gorvantes of the University of Florida keeps her team's canoe in the racing lanes in the two-person women's sprint. Clemson's back-to-back victories mark the fourth time a team has won the contest in consecutive years. The University of Alabama at Huntsville won consecutive championships in 1993 and 1994, and the University of California at Berkeley accomplished the feat twice, in 1988 and 1989 and again in 1991 and 1992.
Clemson University proves the capabilities of its winning canoe in the coed sprint. The teams competing in the national finals represented ASCE student chapters at 26 premier engineering schools. To qualify for the national competition, the teams had won regional runoffs held during the spring.
Members of the University of Alabama-Huntsville team strain at their paddles in the coed sprint, but their efforts were not enough for this perennial powerhouse which has won first place four times in the national competition, to recapture the title. This year's canoes ranged in length from 18.5 to 22.75 ft and weighed between 65 and 210 lb. The lightweight aggregates used included glass beads and microballoons, and such materials as graphite and carbon fiber mesh provided light but strong reinforcement.
Student teams push for the finish line in the coed sprint, in which the four-person teams paddled a straight course of 328 ft, made a 180-degree turn, and raced 328 ft back. "Concrete isn't known for its ability to float, and that is what makes this competition such a great engineering challenge. Achieving the seemingly impossible is how some of the world's greatest engineering wonders were created," said President Delon Hampton. "These civil engineering students are gaining problem-solving and project management skills and demonstrating that concrete is a remarkable and versatile material as they design innovative concrete mixes that actually have numerous applications in the building industry," said Mike Shydlowski, the president and chief executive officer of Master Builders.
The man from Cornell digs in hard to turn his team's canoe in the men's sprint. Seventy percent of the score in this "think or swim" competition is based on oral and written presentations describing the entry and a physical display of the canoe whereby teams market their product to a panel of judges, much like bridge engineers market their designs to prospective clients. The canoes must also pass a critical "swamp test," in which submerged canoes "pop up" and float. The rest of the score (30 percent) depends on the students' paddling prowess, where they validate their designs through performance on the water. The individual categories and the top three finishers in each, in descending order, were as follows: - Design paper (20 percent): This illustrated paper describes hull design, concrete mix design, reinforcement, construction, project management, cost assessment, and innovative features (Oklahoma State University, Florida Institute of Technology, Clemson University). - Oral presentation (20 percent): This presentation, which can last no more than five minutes, highlights the design, construction, and racing ability of the canoe. Alternatively, the presentation can focus on innovative features, with an explanation of what makes the particular entry outstanding (University of Wisconsin-Madison, Michigan State University, Oklahoma State University). - Display (15 percent): This show-and-tell, which is similar to what students will encounter at trade shows, must include a cutaway section of the canoe (Clemson University, Florida Institute of Technology, Michigan State University). - Final product (15 percent): In this phase the judges look at each canoe's surface finish, quality of workmanship, and aesthetics, with attention also given to the felicity of the name (Clemson University, University Laval, University of Washington). - Racing (30 percent): Two-person men's and women's sprint and distance races and a four-person coed sprint sort things out admirably (Clemson University, University Of Alabama-Huntsville, University of Florida). The other schools participating in the finals of the 2000 national competition were, in alphabetical order, California Polytechnic University, Cornell University, Drexel University, Kansas State University, North Carolina State University, Rowan University, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, University of California-Davis, University of Idaho, University of Minnesota, University of New Orleans, University of Rhode Island, University of Texas-El Paso, University of Texas-San Antonio, U.S. Air Force Academy, Virginia Tech, and Western Kentucky University. |
