Arkansas State University civil engineering students traveled to Chattanooga, Tennessee, last weekend for the annual Concrete Canoe competition. It was part of more than 20 events scheduled at the American Society of Civil Engineers Mid-South Student Symposium, which saw 14 universities attending.

“It’s a competition among civil engineering student clubs sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) to showcase concrete as a building material and provide an opportunity for those students to design and showcase a specific product that reflects their own efforts and expertise and execution of a design plan,” said Jason Stewart, faculty advisor to the A-State chapter of ASCE and director of civil engineering.   

Held March 30 through April 1, students competed not only in the Concrete Canoe competition, but also in the steel bridge building competition as well as other events.

The concrete canoe team, who competed under the name “Raging Red Wolves,” were given a packet of rules in September. This gives instructions on what kinds of materials can be used in the concrete, what can be used for floatation and more.

In order to make the canoe float, glass beads were used as the aggregate. An aggregate is a granular material used alongside water and cement to make concrete. The completed canoe also had Styrofoam pieces on the ends, covered in concrete, to help it float.

The boat also had a specific gravity of 1.07, meaning in terms of gravity, it was barely heavier than water. This also helped the canoe float.

Before the canoes can be raced, they must undergo a “swamp test,” where it is submerged in water. If the canoe resurfaces, the team can move on to the rest of the competition. 

During the swamp test for A-State’s canoe, water got under one of the Styrofoam pieces, causing it to pop out of the canoe. The issue was fixed on site. 

“We didn’t have any issues with the concrete getting a hole or cracking or anything, so our mix was really really good,” said Dorsey Spears, a senior civil engineering major from Sheridan, Arkansas, who was the captain of the canoe team. 

The concrete canoe competition also sees the designers of the boats race each other. There were five different race events, the men’s and women’s sprints, men’s and women’s slaloms and the co-ed sprint. How the teams do in the races is worth 25% of their point total. 

While A-State did not place in the concrete canoe competition, Spears said it was still a great opportunity for him.

“I had a really good group of people that were with me that helped me design the whole thing and fabricate the whole thing. We took it to a competition and we did well, (although) we might not have gotten the results that we wanted,” Spears said. 

Another event was the steel bridge competition. Like the concrete canoe, the designers were given a rules packet in September and spent all of last semester designing it.

The steel bridge was part of the senior design class, which is a two semester course. The first semester was spent designing the bridge, while the second semester saw the construction of the bridge. The bridge was required to be between 23-24 feet long, less than five feet wide and tall and hold 2,500 pounds. 

At the competition, the bridge held 2,300 of the 2,500 pounds. Colton Couch, a senior civil engineering major from Paragould, said his team encountered some difficulties when designing the bridge.

“It was hard to get the program (we used to design the bridge) to understand what you wanted from it,” Couch said. “(We also had to) make significant changes to the bridge design because there were things we hadn’t considered before we actually tried to build it.”

Despite the setbacks, the students involved saw the competition as a learning opportunity.

“My team and I have definitely learned lots of practical knowledge about the fabrication of things that we design that we may not have learned without being on the front and back end of the process,” Couch said. “Our abilities as engineers have grown significantly, as has our perspective on how hard something is to actually create in the real world versus how it looks on paper.”

Spears said Stewart had both design groups write a “lessons learned report” for the upcoming teams.

“They’ll learn about the things that we did right and the things that we did wrong and things that we would change and the things that worked really well for us,” Spears said.

A-State won the UESI Surveying Competition and finished second in the Construction Institute competition. 

“After winning third last year, we were determined to be first this year. It felt great to bring back first place to A-State,” said Madison Walker, a junior civil engineering major from Tuckerman, who was on the surveying team. “Although we were presented with bad weather and other challenges, we were able to push through. My team showed both impressive determination and positive attitudes while surveying in the rain.”

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