It sounds a little crazy. In fact, it sounds impossible. Let’s take some concrete, and use it to make…a canoe? A Central Coast university team is not only doing it, it’s won its second national championship in a row for its concrete canoe skills.
"A concrete canoe is exactly what it sounds like. We make a canoe out of concrete," said Heather Migdal, who is the Project Manager for Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s concrete canoe team. "It's weird, but we can make concrete float."
The Cal Poly team just won the 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers Concrete Canoe Competition at the University of Wisconsin. It’s a fun event for engineering students from around the country, but it's also a big challenge which helps them develop problem solving skills.
"When people think about this, they think it's kind of a silly thing. But, this project gives us a chance to do something that's really difficult," said Garrett Hall, who is an engineering professor at Cal Poly, and is the concrete canoe team’s faculty advisor.
"Doing something difficult and challenging has value you can't really gain in any other way," said Hall. "We have this culture here in our program that we believe there's value in doing hard things, and we have a belief that we can do these things."
Hall is sort of like longtime Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson, who built a dynasty with four NBA championships in Los Angeles. Hall’s teams have won seven national titles during his nearly two decades as advisor.
But, it’s more than building a concrete canoe, it’s how you did it, and how it actually performs in the water. Yes, you have to actually row it. The competition has four categories.
"You have the canoe itself, and an aesthetic element. This year our theme was the California kelp forest, and her (the canoe's) name was Oceana," said Migdal. "Then, you have a technical presentation, a technical proposal in response to the request for proposal the judges have put out, and then races."
She says they did a practice canoe before making the one they entered in the competition. There were ten people on the team, as well as other volunteers who helped when they were making the final, 18 foot, 8 inch long canoe. Even though it’s made from concrete, it’s surprisingly light, weighing around 175 pounds.
It’s been quite a week for the project leader. The team won the national title earlier this week. Her twin brother is graduating this week from UC Santa Cruz. Her older brother is graduating from UCLA. And, she’s graduating from Cal Poly. But, she’s returning to Cal Poly in the fall to get her masters in engineering.
Hall said these engineering super achievers have bright careers ahead of them.
"I've met some many great kids over the years, and they'll call me two years after graduation and tell me that they are project managers. I was like that's amazing....but now, after seeing it happen over and over again, it's not surprising anymore," said Hall.
He said after doing something like the canoe project, the engineering students are ten steps ahead of others because of their experience.
The concrete canoe which helped the team win the national title is on its way back from Wisconsin. It will be put on display at Cal Poly.
