About

Mission Statement:
Rice Concrete Canoe is a student-run club that creates a functional concrete canoe to race and present at the yearly ASCE sponsored competition. Throughout the year, members gain engineering experience through the research, planning, and constructing of a concrete canoe. By offering members exposure to the engineering design process, small-group work, software such as Matlab and  Adobe Illustrator (and possibly more starting this year), and laser cutters, Concrete Canoe offers a unique experience to students regardless of whether or not they want to become engineers.

History:
Since its inception in 2009, the Rice Concrete Canoe team has placed itself as a strong competitor within five short years of experience.  Although the first foray into the ASCE National Concrete Canoe Competition, the Titanic, sunk, we have since taken second and fourth place in the Texas-Mexico regional’s with Revenge and Centurion.  In 2013, 2014, and 2015 we continued this course with the Cloud, Horizon, and Sagittarius. For this exciting upcoming year, 2015-2016, you can help continue the tradition with our new canoe.

oSfqvEiecLN0CGh54eIfEbbjpY3mKjGjNjlIGrrndZsPresenting Sagittarius at the 2015 Competition

The Competition:
The annual concrete canoe competition is held among schools within the Texas-Mexico Region. Rice Concrete Canoe Team competes against schools such as UT Austin, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Mexico (UAEM), to name a few.

Each team is scored in the following four categories

  1. Design Paper:
    A ten-page technical paper that presents the research and work put into constructing the concrete canoe.
  2. Oral Presentation:
    A five minute presentation about the canoe and design. The presentation can include slideshows, pictures, and videos. After the presentation, the judges will ask technical questions for an additional five minutes.
  3. Final Product:
    The canoe and its display are judged on aesthetics and workmanship.
  4. Races:
    The useability of the canoes is tested in following timed races:

Men’s sprint
Women’s sprint
Co-ed endurance
Men’s endurance
Women’s endurance

BiU_AS7LASMBs-apzv5EWFCq2ptyrbZ1YhON2IeSwr0Start of the women’s Sprint, 2015 Competition

To learn more about the race, see the corresponding ASCE page for more information: http://www.asce.org/event/2016/concrete-canoe/