Alligator Online
By JESSICA DUCHENE
Sanded, smoothed and stained orange and blue, a concrete canoe made by six UF civil engineering students will race on Lake Wauburg on Friday.
The UF chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers is competing in the Regional Concrete Canoe Competition, a three-day event starting Thursday as a part of the ASCE 2006 Southeastern Regional Conference. UF hosts the competition this year and welcomes all competing schools within the Southeastern Regional Conference.
"The purpose of the competition is to make a concrete canoe that floats, races and hopefully wins," said Reuben Franklin, a fifth-year UF civil engineering student and member of the concrete canoe team.
Made from a mold, the canoe floats after careful testing of water displacement and the mixture of the concrete. Concrete is made up of cement and aggregates, which is like fine sands or rocks, and can be made lighter depending on the mixture, Franklin said.
The competition consists of three days worth of displaying, racing and presenting the canoes to the ASCE judges.
The visual part of the competition begins Thursday with a display of the concrete canoes in the Stephen C. O'Connell Center from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Students, faculty and the Gainesville community will get the opportunity to see the canoes out of the water and up close.
On the second day of the competition, the concrete canoes will race at Lake Wauburg from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The UF chapter of ASCE has a team of six paddlers who will race its canoe, "Gatorstrong," in a series of five different races. The final step of the competition is a presentation in the Florida Gym on Saturday morning, which explains the designing, planning and building process of the canoe.
The theme of the canoe is "Built Gator Tough" and represents the hard work put into the project by all the team members, said Michael Burns, concrete canoe captain and project manager.
Burns said he hopes to impress fellow UF students with the canoe and encourages everyone to come out to the competition, which offers the unique opportunity to inform the general public about concrete as a successful construction product, he said.
"You get to see what civil engineers can really do," Burns said. "We can make concrete float - now that's an accomplishment."
Burns began working with the rest of the team on the canoe as early as the Fall semester. The UF chapter of ASCE started early to recruit members for the project, plan the design for the canoe and begin paddling practice for those participating in the racing portion of the competition.
Burns said his biggest personal accomplishment in the project was to see the final product.
"You come up with this idea in your head," Burns said as he pointed to the canoe. "And in the end you think, 'Wow, there it is.' That's really satisfying.
For more information on the UF chapter of the ASCE, visit the Web site at ufasce.com.