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Concrete Canoe Team Wins Regional
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The Michigan Tech Concrete Canoe Team took first
place overall in the American Society of Civil
Engineers' regional competition held last weekend
at the University of Akron, in Ohio.
By winning, the Tech team earned the right to
represent the North Central Conference at the
National Competition, to be held in Washington,
DC, June 17-20.
The team took first place in the design paper,
oral presentation and final product categories,
and finished second in the races to win the
competition by a comfortable margin.
The students adopted a lumberjack theme, in
keeping with Michigan Tech's northwoods location,
and displayed their canoe on top of logs cut from
the woods. As for the concrete, they replaced the
crushed rock with mini-bubbles of glass,
experimenting with 45 trial batches to develop
the strongest, lighter-than-water mix.
It's not enough just to float your boat, explains
Brian Wardman, co-captain of the team and a
third-year civil engineering major. "Part of the
competition is to submerge the canoe and have it
come back up."
The team built upon last year's model. "It is
shaped like a professional racing canoe," Wardman
said. "This year, we made a few modifications,
but we kept the same hull design."
Their strong showing in the races is all the more
noteworthy considering Michigan Tech's iced-in
winters. "We had to paddle in the pool all winter
trying to stay in shape," he said. This involves
strapping the canoe to the edge of the pool and
paddling like crazy to get absolutely nowhere.
"It's pretty frustrating," Wardman admitted.
But being from the frozen shores of Lake Superior
does have its advantages. "When it was 45 degrees
on race day, we were walking around in shorts and
sandals, and all the other teams were bundled up."
Now, with the Portage Waterway opening up, the
team will begin serious paddling practice to
shave a few seconds off of their race times
before the national competition in June. The team
isn't fazed by a few patches of ice in the water,
Wardman said.
Student teams from nearly 200 colleges and
universities compete annually in 20 regional
concrete canoe conferences to earn the right to
go to the nationals. Last year, the Michigan Tech
Team won the North Central Championship and
finished seventh in the national competition,
held in Philadelphia.
To win the North Central Conference, Michigan
Tech defeated teams from the University of Akron,
Michigan State University, the University of
Michigan at Ann Arbor, Lawrence Technological
University in Southfield, Ohio Northern
University, St. Clair College in Windsor, Ont.,
and the University of Toledo in Ohio.
Canoe team members are co-captains Wardman and
Ray Trudgeon and team members T. J. Bates, A. J.
Booker, Jen Byle, Kriselda Cuellar, Chris Huyser,
Rich King, Danielle Ladwig, Jesse Laux, Tim
Martin, Craig Morehouse, Sarah Nunn, Erron Peuse,
Jonathon Rumble, Adam Rychwalski, Chad
Scherwinski, Eric Seguin, Melissa Shindorf, Erin
Sturgell, Raine Wanner and Kim Zehler.
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