Clemson Concrete Canoe Team Wins National Title |
CLEMSON, SC -- For the second straight year, Clemson University
has won the National Concrete Canoe Competition, billed as the ultimate think-or-swim collegiate challenge. Some 260 civil engineering students from across North America showcased their ingenuity and problem-solving skills as they raced concrete canoes they designed and built in the June 24-26 competition in Golden, Colo. The 13th annual event was organized by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and sponsored by Master Builders Inc. Results were announced Monday night. "It's just a source of enormous pride - you can't explain it," said Clemson's Ron Anderson, a civil engineering graduate student who is one of the project's co-leaders. "It's probably the same feeling as running down the hill for the first time in front of 80,000 people on a football Saturday." Student team members include Anderson, project co-leader Joel Sheets, paddling captain Lissa Henkel, Brad Putman, Ernest Trussell, Cortney Seamon, Keilah Metcalf, Andrew Shuler, Janeen Smith, Mike DePalma, Sara Hobbs, Ruthie Edmondson, Jessica Cummings, Alana Walden, Eric Hartman, Melanie Frank, Ashley Dearhart, P.J. Cwynar, Cameron Nations and David Powell. Clemson won with "Instinct," a sleek 21-foot, 100-pound boat able to reach speeds of 10 feet per second. "We are very proud of our students, their faculty advisor Serji Amirkhanian and the thousands of hours of hard work they've invested in this project," said James K. Nelson Jr., chairman of Clemson's civil engineering department. The 26 co-ed teams competing this year represented ASCE student chapters at the nation's premiere engineering schools -- not to mention the cream of the concrete crop, having left nearly 200 teams in their wake at regional run-offs this spring. Finalists vied for $9,000 in scholarship prizes, as well as the coveted best-boat bragging rights. In the early years of the competition, students used sidewalk-variety concrete, but they produced the equivalent of floating bathtubs that hefted in at 400 pounds. Now, students use glass beads, micro-balloons, graphite and carbon-fiber mesh to create canoes that may weigh as little as 75 pounds and range from 15- to 22-feet long. Instinct's aggregate recipe -- what in sidewalk days would have passed for sand or gravel -- included four different types of glass micro-bubbles, high-performance fibers, meticulously shredded carbon fibers and a liquid latex. The team, led by Sheets, adjusted the mix for three long months until they judged it sound. "The competition is really about building engineers, not boats," said Amirkhanian, the group's faculty advisor. "These hands-on competitions give students team-building skills and management techniques that are virtually impossible to learn from textbooks alone." It's not enough to design, build and race the boat. Team members must 'sell' the boat with all the enthusiasm they'd need to pitch and win business contracts in the corporate world. Clemson's marketing juggernaut included an elaborate jungle-themed display in which the boat, propped on two wild-animal cages, straddled a creek flowing with real water. Students typically invest about 2,000 hours in the design and construction of their canoes. Approximately seventy percent of the score in these competitions is based on academics, that is, the final canoe and presentations in which teams creatively market their products (the canoes) to a panel of judges. As a safety measure, canoes must also pass a critical "swamp test" in which submerged canoes must quickly pop up to the surface and float. The rest of the score depended on the students' paddling prowess in two-person men's and women's sprint and distance races, as well as a four-person co-ed sprint race. Another 2,000 hours typically goes into rowing practice.
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