Concrete Canoe Team Places Third in ASCE Competitions
UTA’s concrete canoe team captured third-place finishes in the men’s sprint and co-ed sprint events at the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Concrete Canoe Regional Competition in South Padre Island, Texas.
Concrete canoe is a national competition sponsored by ASCE that challenges students to design, construct, and race canoes made out of concrete. The competition consists of four components: design papers, oral presentation, final product and canoe races.
Team captains Steven Briceno, Joseandres Bautista and Jose Ortiz had to lead their peers through a major challenge that could have kept them out of the competition when the team’s canoe broke one week before the event.
“I had noticed some cracks a week before the competition and on Monday morning we found the canoe broken in half. It takes a concrete canoe 7 days to get 75% of its strength and 28 days to reach 100%. We were able to reconstruct the canoe again in 4 days and we built it stronger than before. I call it miracle canoe,” said Briceno.
The same mold of the original canoe was used for the reconstruct. Bautista was appreciative of the support of the Civil Engineering Department. “We didn’t have more materials. The Civil Engineering Department was generous and sponsored our team by paying for the materials we needed,” he said.
The team consisted of 23 Civil Engineering and two Mechanical Engineering students, and included the help of faculty and alumni. More than 200 hours went into the preparation and construction of the canoe.
“I would recommend that next year’s captains try to bring as many students to the team as they can. It’s not just about building a canoe, it’s about building friendships and experiences, and it takes a strong commitment. The best thing you can do is get involved! It will make your university experience 10 times better,” Briceno said.
Written by Selena Alvarenga