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Concrete Canoe |
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The Concrete Canoe Competition is designed to provide students with practical applications of what they have learned in the classroom. Students are also given the opportunity to enhance their technical writing, teamwork, and project management skills. During the course of this academic year, students designed, mixed, and tested different concrete mixes to find the optimum mix that was both lightweight and strong. They also created two different molds, and poured the concrete for each canoe. Each canoe was removed, and the best one was sanded and painted to ensure it would flow smoothly through the water. Students then raced their canoe at Lake Fayetteville. The five races included: men's & women's slaloms (2 person sprint), men's & women's endurance races (3 person long-distance course), and the coed race (4-person sprint). After the men's sprint, the canoe began to crack. 3" Styrofoam boards were placed on the bottom to evenly distribute the weight of the paddlers for the women's sprint and coed races. Unfortunately, the weight of the paddlers was too great for the coed race, and all four had to swim the canoe back to shore. The canoe was patched using specialty tape donated by Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, and the men's endurance race ensued. Once again, the weight of the paddlers was too much, and the guys had to be reeled to shore. The racing portion of the competition was completed with the women's endurance race. After overcoming many obstacles, the women's teams came in 3rd in both of their races, and UNO came in 6th place for racing points. Overall, UNO finished in 10th place out of 11 teams, but members feel like they gained valuable insight into concrete mixes, management skills, and preparation. Any students interested in helping create next year's canoe, contact Jared Davis at |
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2008 Concrete Canoe Team |
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Peter Kiewit Institute |
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University of Nebraska at Omaha |
