UW's Concrete Canoes

Badgers do a 'fivepeat' to rule 20th concrete canoe event

UW Badger team owns the concrete canoe event. Below is an explanation from a former team member and my fabulous niece:

Go Badgers!!!

Just the fact that I participated in Concrete Canoe and Steel Bridge is an enormous reason for why I've been hired at great firms in the past.

Alors, the UW Madison Concrete Canoe team /*follows the rules*/. This may seem quite simple however, it takes hours of dedication and some nights of sleeping in the lab to accomplish. A hefty packet of rules comes out each year which has various changes from the previous season. The majority of these changes pertain to the concrete mix itself (the amounts of water, cement, ash, glass beads, etc). We paid a lot of attention to this and up to 40 different mixes were cast into cylinders, tested under ASTM standards, and documented in the technical report - another portion of the competition. A surprising amount of teams do not entirely obey these concrete mix regulations and, thus, get disqualified.

This is all good and proper, but UW takes it 100 steps further with the amount of time each teammate dedicates to the effort. Let's not forget the races. The paddlers on our team practice together as though they were training for the Tour de France. This is clear if you've ever been to a Concrete Canoe competition.

Another thing that always makes us stick out is that our concrete canoe literally feels as smooth as glass. When I was on the team (and I'm guessing they still do this), shifts were set up so that several students were in the lab sanding the canoe - all day long for many days. This helps with the aesthetics portion of our score.

Beyond that, the technical presentation is practiced many, many times and the co-chairs always put canoe before everything else for that school year. Several sub-committees are set up to allow for more concentrated efforts on each division of the competition as well as _fund raising_! The companies which support the team are really what allow us to be so successful since, without them, we'd never be able to afford all the needed supplies for the mix and mold. UW takes it extremely seriously, but we have tons of fun (for lack of a much less cliche expression).

Joining the team was undoubtedly one of the best decisions I made in my college career, along with my beloved, but far less known, Steel Bridge Team (which demands just as much time and effort).

Well I tried to make this as brief as possible, but there is much to say about the Concrete Canoe team.

Please do not hesitate with more questions! I enjoy reminiscing.

Love,
Domi