Engineering Students Compete in Annual Concrete Canoe Competition

A senior design team from the Bryan College Vogel School of Engineering competed in an annual Concrete Canoe Competition put on this past week by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Races for the event were located at Chester Frost Park. The University of Tennessee, Chattanooga hosted students from our region.

In order to compete in this event, students developed a volumetric concrete mixture design, acquired materials, built a canoe mold, and cast the concrete canoe. The process of casting the canoe took 9 hours with numerous students helping. The students then had the challenge of transporting the approximately 500 lb. canoe to the event without damaging it. Once there, the team competed in a total of five races: a men’s sprint, a women’s sprint, a men’s slalom, a women’s slalom, and a four-person coed sprint. As concrete canoes are prone to crack and sink, we were one of only six teams able to complete all five races.

“I was very proud of our team for the durability of the canoe,” said Dr. Casey Jones. This was Bryan College’s first ASCE competition and we were able to compete against larger schools such as the University of Tennessee Knoxville, the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, and Vanderbilt University. The students learned a lot and enjoyed their time on the water.

To learn more about Bryan’s Engineering program, visit https://www.bryan.edu/engineering/