After four months and more than 2,000 labor hours, the University chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers is ready to row.
The organization’s team is competing in a series of concrete canoe races this weekend as part of the ASCE Deep South Regional Conference at McNeese State University. The conference features men’s and women’s sprint and endurance races, as well as a co-ed sprint to cap off the competition.
Concrete canoe captain Amy Olson, a civil engineering senior, said the conference focuses on bringing civil engineers together for friendly competition. The University’s ASCE chapter has been competing in the regional conference for over a decade.
“I’m excited,” Olson said. “I’m hoping that we’ll go out there and give it our best, and hopefully we’ll place in the top three.”
The team began preparation in November, hosting a team design workshop to brainstorm the canoe’s structure and the concrete mix’s design. The team then acquired support from the Louisiana Transportation Research Center and six local engineering companies to execute its design.
Team members used LTRC lab space to test sample batches of various concrete mix designs before settling on the final formula. The canoe was then assembled in an ASCE workshop in the engineering lab annex building.
The canoe’s concrete mix includes an aggregate with a density lighter than water’s, allowing the canoe to float with additional buoyancy provided by styrofoam end caps, Olson said. Aggregates are fillers which influence the properties and performance of concrete mixes.
Aside from the race itself, the team is judged on a formal canoe display, design paper and oral presentation, Olson said.
While the team has placed well in the race component in recent years, ASCE faculty adviser Michele Barbato, associate professor of civil engineering, said it has lost points in other categories. He said Olson’s reorganization of this year’s team will hopefully boost the score in the oral presentation, display and design paper components.
Olson and Barbato agreed time has also been a challenge for the team in this year’s competition. Aside from the struggle of accommodating students’ schedules, the team worked on an accelerated project schedule because of a late start and an earlier conference date.
Working with concrete also forces the students to work on a condensed time schedule, Barbato said. It takes concrete 28 days to fully cure, and ensuring enough time existed for the canoe to cure before testing the canoe’s performance in the water was critical, he said.
Regardless of a win, Olson said the conference is a great place to learn from other civil engineers.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” Olson said. “Just to be around a lot of other civil engineers that have been working on the same project. They may have done things you didn’t even think about.”