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Cal Poly's Concrete Canoe More Than Floats: Team of Engineers Take Second at National Contest

Posted on: Tuesday, 27 June 2006, 21:00 CDT

By Sally Connell, The Tribune, San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Jun. 27--A team of Cal Poly Engineers has won second place in "The America's Cup of Civil Engineering," a contest involving 500 students from 23 universities.

The event was the National Concrete Canoe Competition, sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers' (ASCE) June 15-17 at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Okla.

The Cal Poly team and its entry, the Katana, bested Clemson, UC Berkeley and other entrants to take the silver medal finish. A team of engineering students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison took first place.

The annual contest begins with hundreds of civil engineering students from over 200 engineering schools across the country. The top 23 teams are selected to compete in the national finals.

Their objective: to design, build and race canoes made of concrete. The competing students are scored on categories including the aesthetics and structural integrity of their canoe, a technical design paper, an academic presentation, and the ultimate test: the concrete canoe race.

This year's Cal Poly entry was judged "Best Overall Product." The Katana is an elegant white, 250-pound, 21.25-foot-long canoe, according to civil engineering professors Garrett Hall and Eric Kasper, the team advisors.

--Sally Connell

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Tribune, San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Tribune (San Luis Obispo, Calif.)

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