What weighs 200 pounds, is made of concrete and floats? A concrete canoe, of course.
You wouldn't find very many of these lying around, though, unless you were in Philadelphia this week with members of the OU chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers as they competed in the 16th annual ASCE/MBT National Concrete Canoe Competition.
The competition pits engineering college students from around the nation against each other to see who has the brains, skill and muscle to make and race the best concrete canoe.
"We will be putting everything we have learned in the classroom to use," said Ryan Hague, 2003 OU graduate and team member days before the race.
"It's really an intense process and can be frustrating."
Preparing for the competition is a year-long process, involving not only research and construction of the canoe but also physical training.
"This requires a lot of man-hours, but once you get a group of good, competent people together, it can be fun," Hague said.
The team isn't judged on just how pretty its 200 pound boat is. It has to race it, too.
"The race counts as 30 percent of your score. It can't make you but you have to be able to race to win," said Kyle La Pointe, senior and team member. "We had people that are mainly focused on paddling. We tried to put our best athletes into the competition."
Crafting the concrete canoe is a trial of endurance in-and-of-itself say team members.
"We had to scrap a whole canoe this year," said Hague. "We had to start over and make a whole new mold. When you do that, you lose everything you've worked on so far."
Making concrete float isn't a walk in the park, either, say team members. The secret is what goes into the concrete. To put it in laymen's terms the canoe must be lighter than water per cubic foot. On average concrete weighs 155 pounds per cubic foot and water weighs about 62 pounds per cubic foot. So what is the solution?
"Concrete is basically cement mixed with water and an aggregate," said Jan Reed, 2003 graduate and paddling captain. "The aggregate works as a base for the cement to stick to. That's what we changed to make the canoe lighter. Usually aggregate is rock or sand." The team ended up using a Styrofoam bead aggregate on this year's canoe, and it still weighed 200 pounds.
Even while the crew worked to build this year's canoe it was training for the competition in a fiberglass replica of last year's canoe. Training was a year-long process and the team only stopped when it got too cold to do practice rounds.
It takes a combination of brains and brawn to win in this type of competition, say team members. The team had to give a synopsis of its canoe to judges in Philadelphia and turn in a design, and its canoes were graded on quality and durability. And the thing has to float, too. Reed said the best part of the competition was its duality.
This was only the third time the OU ASCE team has been to the nationals, and the last two were on the heels of rival Oklahoma State University. According to ASCE rules, if a team comes in fifth or above in nationals and wins first in regionals, the next year the team that came in second in their region also gets to go to nationals. That team has been OU for the past two years. This year was different. The OU team beat OSU in the regional competition for the first time.
"Beating OSU was pretty exciting," said Joey Dunaway, senior and team member. "Our team has been steadily growing. Everyone was pretty shocked."
Once the nationals rolled around, the team was prepared and confident.
"Before we went to regionals, we were pretty confident," said Kerry Maroney, senior and president of the OU ASCE chapter, a day before the race. "Just from observing the teams here (at nationals), we feel confident. We are here to win."
A 200-pound concrete canoe is a lot harder to handle than a simple fiberglass one, said La Pointe. Even with the extra weight, crews did 600-meter endurance races in under four minutes.
The OU team did respectably in the races and did even better in the presentation part of the competition, garnering fifth place overall.
"We were kind of surprised with ourselves," said Brent Chancellor, junior and team member.
The last two times an OU team went to nationals, they won 14th and eighth places, respectively.
"To keep the same ratio going, we will have to get third next year," said Reed. "Number five out of 253 schools is pretty good. If we continue to hold in the top five, eventually we will get to the top."
The point of these contests isn't just about teaching people how to make concrete canoes, Reed said.
"The competition gives students the chance to get hands-on practical experience and builds leadership skills," said Reed. "Its all about being a team player and having to weigh costs."
The leadership and teamwork skills learned during the process will help the students compete better in the job market, Reed said. But team-building skills weren't the only thing students took away from the races.
"I love the fun of it," Reed said. "You cannot believe the adrenaline. The day of the races you are fired up. We felt like the Wright brothers, being able to build and test something."
The team is already preparing for next year's competition.
"We already have 14 people signed up for next year's team. That's a good portion of the team," said Reed.
Reed said the team will have to be prepared. With the recent success, there will be a lot of other colleges looking to get revenge.
"We beat out OSU this year and a lot of other good teams and they will be back with a vengeance. But that doesn't mean we aren't ready for them, because we are."
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