Concrete Canoe Nationals Held at Illinois

7/1/2013

Students bring their concrete canoes to Illinois campus for national competition.

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Team members and friends at the awards banquet, held at the Colonnades Club at Memorial Stadium. Left to right, back row: David Lange, Armen Amirkhanian, Mark Keller, Raphael Stern, Colin Rueb, Jonathan Daly, Luis Garay, Paul Papazisi, Robert Butler, Charlie Yu. Left to right, front row: Dan Levitus, Arielle Malinowski, Alex Prasauskas, Hong Kim, Min Yin, Sharla Evatt, Jennifer Zablotny.
 
Concrete canoe teams from across the U.S. and as far away as Puerto Rico and Montréal gathered in Urbana-Champaign June 20-22 for the 2013 National Concrete Canoe Competition. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s own Boneyard Yacht Club was among the 23 teams competing. It was the first time the University of Illinois had hosted the national competition. 
 
The competition began with the teams displaying their canoes on Bardeen Quad on Thursday, June 20. The next day, they made their oral presentations in the auditorium at Siebel Center, and Saturday was race day at nearby Homer Lake. The teams completed the men’s and women’s Slalom/Endurance races in the morning, but afternoon races were cancelled when a storm system moved in around lunchtime. The awards banquet was held Saturday night at the Colonnades Club in Memorial Stadium.
 
concrete canoe races
concrete canoe races
Robert Butler (front of canoe) and Min Yin in the men's Slalom/Endurance race.
 
A five-member panel of judges from industry and academia evaluated the teams on the basis of design papers, oral presentations, their final products and their performance in the races. Prizes include trophies, plaques and a total of $9,000 in academic scholarships awarded to the top three schools.
 
women's slalom/endurance race
women's slalom/endurance race
Clare Curtin (front of canoe) and Alexandra Prasauskas in the women's Slalom/Endurance race.
 
The schools finishing in the top five overall in the 2013 competition were École de technologie supérieure of Montréal, Québec; the University of Nevada, Reno; the University of Florida; California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo; and Utah State University. The Illinois team finished 22nd overall, but team members said they considered it an honor just to compete at the national level.
 
“A shiny trophy would have been nice,” said Hong Kim, team co-captain, “However, the team believes that it was a privilege to participate among the best teams in the nation.”
 
“The purpose isn’t about winning,” said co-captain Min Yin. “It’s about the learning process and meeting the challenges. We really appreciated this chance to participate, and hopefully we can do a better job next year.”
 
“It’s a huge deal for us [to host nationals],” said team member Arielle Malinowski (BS 13). “We’ve been dying to go to nationals every year. I mean, five years ago, our canoe disintegrated in the water at regionals. Basically, we’ve been working our way up.”
 
Top winners, Ecole de technologie superieure of Montreal
Top winners, Ecole de technologie superieure of Montreal

The team that scored highest overall, École de technologie sup
érieure of Montréal, Québec, pictured on display day with their canoe, Savannah.
 
Concrete canoe racing began at the University of Illinois in the 1970s, when civil engineering Professor Clyde Kesler gave his students the assignment to build a concrete canoe. When students at Purdue University heard about it, they made their own concrete canoe and challenged Illinois to a race. In 1971, the first intercollegiate concrete canoe races were held between Illinois and Purdue at Kickapoo State Park in Oakwood, Ill. The Illinois team won three out of five races and declared themselves world champions, even printing up t-shirts to mark the occasion. 
 
A highlight of the awards banquet was an address by Kesler’s son, David Kesler, who said his father joined the faculty at Illinois after serving as an engineer under General George S. Patton. His father was happy yet humbled that his class project ultimately became a national competition, Kesler said.
 
“We have a part of the legacy of this competition that has continued on for more than 40 years,” said CEE Professor David Lange, ASCE student chapter faculty adviser. “It’s known all across the industry. All civil engineers know about the Concrete Canoe Competition, and for Illinois to be hosting this year is a great point of pride.”
 
the team from the University of Puerto Rico
the team from the University of Puerto Rico
The team from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, won the Spirit of Competition award.
 
The lead organizer of this year’s national competition was CEE Ph.D. student Armen Amirkhanian (MS 12), canoe team graduate adviser. He was pleased with the team’s performance.
 
“I think they did really well, considering that they’re a very young team, they had never been to nationals before and at regionals they were unable to compete in the races. At regionals, the races were cancelled due to flooding—which is kind of ironic,” Amirkhanian said.
 
The event as a whole ran smoothly, despite minor glitches like the bad weather on Saturday, Amirkhanian said. 
 
 “All the teams were excited to come to campus,” he said. “They were commenting on how nice the campus was. Some of our faculty members led tours of the department throughout the competition.”
 
Participating on a concrete canoe team challenges students to develop their technical skills, business acumen, artistic ability and presentation skills, said Lange.
 
“It’s a very broad set of skills that come together in the competition,” he said.
 
This year’s Illinois concrete canoe team members were Robert Butler, Clare Curtin, Jonathan Daly, Hareem Dar, Sharla Evatt, Luis Garay, Hong Kim (co-captain), Arielle Malinowski, Raphael Stern, Tawa Sulaiman, Min Yin (co-captain), Charlie Yu and Jennifer Zablotny. Their faculty adviser is CEE Professor Jeffery Roesler. 
 
Additional volunteers included Angeli Gamez (MS 12); CEE student Mark Keller, president of the ASCE student chapter;  James Meister (BS 06); Colin Rueb (BS 12); and Jacob Thede (BS 12).
 
In addition to the University of Illinois, sponsors of this year’s competition included the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), which has been administering all the concrete canoe competitions since 1988; the American Concrete Institute; ASCE Foundation; Geico; Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp.; and World of Concrete.
 
More photos of the event are on the CEE at Illiniois Facebook page.
 
 

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This story was published July 1, 2013.