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Home > News Bits

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Wolf Pack Wins National Concrete Canoe Competition

June 25, 2008

With equal parts technical skill, creativity and determination, the University of Nevada, Reno has captured their first ever national Concrete Canoe title at the American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) 21st Annual National Concrete Canoe Competition. Their 19.5-foot-long, 160-pound, white canoe with blue and silver stain defeated entries from top engineering schools from across the country, and ended the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s five-year winning streak. The win marks the end of three days of fierce competition and more than a year’s worth of blood, sweat and tears for the team, in their bid to capture the ‘America’s Cup of Civil Engineering’.

The team’s closest competitors were the University of California, Berkeley and host school, École de technologie supérieure. The University of California, Berkeley paddled into second place and the École de technologie supérieure finished a close third. For their top finishes, the University of Nevada, Reno, the University of California, Berkeley and École de technologie supérieure earned $5,000, $2,500 and $1,500 in scholarship money, respectively.

The races, both endurance and sprint combined, counted for only 25 percent of the teams’ overall score. The remaining 75 percent was based equally on a technical design paper that highlighted the planning, development, testing and construction of the team’s canoe; a formal oral presentation, in which the team had to detail their canoe’s design, construction, racing ability and other innovative features, as well as defend their choices to the judges during a question and answer session; and the end product—the final racing canoe and project display, which were scored on aesthetics and visual presentation.

For more information on the National Concrete Canoe Competition, including downloadable high-resolution photos, please visit www.concretecanoe.asce.org.

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