UCSD CONCRETE CANOE
Our Goals
Engineering towards innovation
As prospective engineering students, we strive to improve and raise our standards of excellence every year. For every canoe that we build, we aim to design and build a cost-effective product with maximum performance and speed to earn high points for every aspect of the ASCE Concrete Canoe competition at PSWS.
The theme of each of our canoes is fun, yet meaningful. For our 2024 canoe, our team has chosen the theme of the Chrome Dinosaur Game, named Unsyncable. Analogous to the importance of wifi, our team struggled with a disconnect from the knowledge of Concrete Canoe since the COVID-19 pandemic. In the past 2 years, our team has pushed to regain our connection to our peers, faculty, and long-time sponsors, reestablishing our reputation as a full-fledged project team. Below are some preliminary designs of the outer and interior for this year's canoe, as well as our final design!
Preliminary Designs
Final Design
This year, our mix team has decided to take on a more sustainable approach to building our canoe by significantly reducing the amount of Portland cement as one of our cementitious materials. Portland cement has been historically used in all of our mixes for our previous canoes, making up at least 40% of the volume within our cementitious materials. It is known for providing high strength to concrete, yet it is also one of the most environmentally damaging materials since it produces carbon dioxide during the hydration and curing process, thereby making the cement industry one of the main contributors to global warming.
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This summer, our mix leads have been researching over the summer to find a substitute to compensate for the elimination of a large strength factor. They have proposed increasing the amount of slag and VCAS used, which are more sustainable alternatives. Heavy reliance on lightweight aggregates such as Q-CEL and Poraver, hollow glass microspheres, will also be incorporated to reduce the density of the mix and ensure buoyancy. Additionally, our team plans to introduce new lightweight aggregates, EPS beads and perlite, in place of CityMix to further reduce the density of our concrete.
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Other goals include new innovations regarding hull development costs and techniques. In the past, teams have typically used high-density foam to create a mold to build the canoe around. This year our team seeks to raise the bar in terms of cost and sustainability by using biodegradable materials that will have nearly no effect on the environment and reduce costs tenfold.
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With the competition being held in Hawaii this year, additional measures have to be considered. The canoe will be transported by boat in a shipping container, thus our canoe must be shortened to 15 feet in length as opposed to the usual 20 feet. This will greatly alter the performance of the canoe in various aspects, including buoyancy, pitch, and speed - a new challenge that our tech team must consider to accomplish a working design.
2024 Goals
Our Sponsors
Such an incredible task can't be done without the help of our finance team and our sponsors. Each year, these sponsors help fund our project and donate their products for our iterative mix testing. Their generosity is greatly appreciated and helps our development as engineers of the future.