Competition Commentary .:. Team UAH 2003

2003 © Sarah Yeldell. Original artwork and website design except where noted.

2003 Southeast Regional Conference Commentary

Host: Florida International University
Location: Miami, FL
Dates: March 20-22

Due to the small size of this year's team, UAH was only able to participate in the Concrete Canoe Competition, Surveying Competition, and Water Resources Competition. While we did not place in either Surveying or Water Resources, our main focus was, as always, on the Concrete Canoe.

Based on the judges unreserved praise following our oral presentation, our performance in the design paper and presentation were both exceptional. Despite the mandatory changes in mix design, we fielded a boat that required no structural members and no flotation and weighed only 105 lbs. As far as aesthetics and craftsmanship, we believe Thoroughbred stands in a league of its own. By winning the water we not only proved Thoroughbred to be the fastest boat, but also the best engineered product at the competition.

We, as a team, are incredibly happy with our performance at the Southeast Regional Competition. We also had a great time in Miami!

However, there were some concerns following the competition regarding scoring. A more in-depth look at the competition moved us to send an appeal to the Committee for the National Concrete Canoe Competition. In it, we cited our concerns as follows:

- penalty points not assessed to two schools for failing their flotation tests
- different judges reviewing different design papers; non-uniform judging
- judges reviewing presentations had not read the design reports
- extra presentation time given for some teams

We received no response and, with time running out, we decided to file an additional protest to emphasize certain points of the appeal. In it, we pointed out several facts corroborating our appeal.

The response from the CNCCC was not what we had expected. They denied our appeal, ignored our protest, and refused to further explain their reasoning. We, as a team, are extremely disappointed in the way they have handled the situation.

Since filing our protest, several more concerns have come to light. Among them:

- 6 extra points were awarded to FIT's design paper score for a total of 106 out of a possible 100
- there were no return judges; every judge was new to the Concrete Canoe Competition
- judges did not know what a petite final was until it was brought up in the paddler's meeting
- boats with graphics larger than 2 feet across were not penalized
- judges did not ask for the boats to be turned over during product judging
- since the competition, the scores have been altered FIVE times to make corrections
- during the peer evaluation, team captains were explicitly told not to judge based on rule violations, but only to "pick the prettiest boat"
- comments from the judges that the design papers were too short (the new rules limit the number of pages very explicitly)