About Us:
Each year, UC San Diego’s Concrete Canoe team competes in the National Concrete Canoe Competition hosted by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). The competition challenges students to design and build a 20-foot long canoe out of concrete. A set of prescribed rules governs the design of the concrete and all other aspects of the competition. Students apply what they have learned in class and from other students to design and analyze the canoe, using programs like AutoCAD, SolidWorks, Matlab, and SAP2000. They also gain hands-on experience mixing and testing concrete, constructing the mold and reinforcement systems, applying the aesthetic designs, and ultimately fabricating the competition canoe.
The team competes against 18 other schools in the Pacific Southwest Conference. At PSWC, each team is judged in four categories: aesthetics, canoe races, an oral presentation, and a technical paper. The top team moves on to the national competition where they compete against other regional winners.
2019-2020 Recap:
- 2nd Place Design Paper
- 2nd Place Oral Presentation
- 3rd Place Final Product
- 2nd Place Overall
2020:
- 3rd Place Final Product
- 5th Place Overall
This past year & a half has dramatically impacted everyone including the landscape of engineering competitions like Concrete Canoe. The Pacific Southwest Conference (PSWC) hosted by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) was held virtually by UCLA for this past year of 2020-2021. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the UCSD team was unable to physically build a canoe and was asked to create a technical proposal with a new enhanced focus area report. Despite this pandemic and working across many miles, the UCSD Concrete Canoe Team was able to earn a spot in 5th place overall as we continues to persist, persevere, and prosper to raise our standards of excellence.
For the 2020 year, the UCSD Concrete Canoe Team worked virtually over Zoom to develop and present our canoe known as Paku. Paku is based upon the 41-year-old retro video game, Pac-Man, to showcase familiarity and nostalgia during current times of uncertainty. For our enhanced focus area report, we created a building information model (BIM) and a new website to transfer technical knowledge and fabrication expertise onto future members of the team.
As restrictions lift, we are hoping to compete in-person again & remain within high standing ranks. If you're interested at all such as becoming more involved or wish to learn more then look through our website here at https://www.ucsdconcretecanoe.com/.
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UCSD Concrete Canoe
Contact Concrete Canoe Project Manager
Huyson Tran(hptran@ucsd.edu)
