It can be a little strange to read how outsiders see in-group activities that you are familiar with. This article in Core77 on the annual concrete canoe races sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers is aimed at industrial designers. It holds up the concrete canoe races as an example of combining hands-on experience with the design process, which is certainly true, but somehow avoids discussing the hopelessly geeky aspects of the whole thing.
The idea behind the concrete canoes is that they are small enough to be practical for students to build and test through real-life use. They also, of course, play off the idea that concrete is heavy and seems like it shouldn’t float. We’re more comfortable with the idea steel ships, even though steel is even heavier than concrete, but it’s a moot point since boats and ships don’t float because the materials they are made of float. They float because the amount of water they displace weighs more than they do – in other words, the average density of a boat if we include all of the air inside of it is less than the density of water. A boat with no holes will sink if it fills up with water because its average density increases. In any case, concrete was used for ships during both world wars, as steel was at a premium for other uses. The photo above is a Norwegian concrete barge in 1916.
Law students hold mock trials and medical students practice on various stand-ins for human patients. I don’t think it should be any surprise that structural engineers design and race concrete canoes, but somehow it seems strange to people.
Finally, full disclosure on this topic overlaps with bragging. Our student intern, Jimmy Chen, was a member of the City College Concrete Canoe Team this year and we were a team sponsor. They did well, coming in second in the metropolitan area regionals.
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