MADALYN MOUTON
2021-22 Concrete Canoe
"Cypress Cat"
Each year, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) hosts a national competition where student chapters compete by building a boat out of concrete and racing it against one another. The competition is based on final product, presentation, a technical report, and the race.
This year's concrete canoe team was the first time since COVID that students could compete in-person. This was our first time doing this competition. I led a team of 5 through reverse engineering how to build a concrete boat.
Starting in October, we opened up the concrete canoe lab for the first time since COVID started to be greeted by an unfinished canoe, a mold strewn about, and cobwebs. We cleaned the lab and removed the previous boat to make way for new construction. The mold was cnc'ed high-density foam that was made to be used again. We decided to reuse the mold from the previous year. It had dried concrete stuck to it, so we had to chisel it off without damaging the mold. This took 5 months to complete.
While this was happening, we reached out to construction management grad students that helped the previous team to recreate a similar mixture based on the requirements of this year's rules. We used the Louisiana Transportation Research Center's equipment to mix and test. We tested three different mixtures on how workable they were along with strength before settling on a final mixture. Our final mixture and testing of material was done in January.
Once the mold was free of dried concrete, we reassembled it using screws and held it together using clamps. We used masking tape to cover the cracks in the mold. We covered it with two layers of latex paint.
We tested the mixture in our lab to make sure that we understood how it worked with our mixer. We used that mixture to test how to remove it from the high-density foam. We also prepared all our dry materials ahead of time to be prepared for pour-day. We also shaped the styrofoam before our build to use in the endcaps of our boat to help the boat float and give structure to the ends of the boat.
Pour Day!
This took 9 hours and 12 volunteers to build.
We covered the boat in a wet tarp let it cure for 14 days. After 7 days, we removed the endcaps of the mold to make sure the boat could be removed from the mold.
After 14 days, we removed the boat from the mold and put finishing touches on it such as adding our school's name and the boat's name for the year. It was then loading it into the truck to bring it off to the races!
End result: we had a boat that could float and race.
See the finished powerpoint presentation in the attachment below.
Click me!
