UCSD CONCRETE CANOE
The Basic Process
Throughout the entire school year, our team works hard to plan, design, and build our concrete canoe in time for the annual Pacific Southwest Student Symposium. Each of our six subteams has its own unique schedule to fulfill their individual responsibilities which contribute to the overall engineering process. Check out this timeline to see how our canoes are made!
Pour Day
Pour Day is UCSD Concrete Canoe's biggest day in the canoe-building process, in which the entire team gathers to construct the 20ft canoe the entire day. It's a very fun, hands-on experience that is open to everyone, including non-Structural Engineering majors. Using the hull design finalized by tech team, the project manager, mix team, and construction team oversee the process as members spend the day mixing buckets of concrete and placing it along the styrofoam mold to form the shape of a canoe. The canoe is lined with layers of structural concrete mix, mesh, and aesthetics concrete mix to produce a strong and visually-pleasing canoe that is ready for the PSWS competition!
Members gathering for Pour Day
Aesthetic mix samples
1
Before Pour Day
Heavy advertising is done in order to gather as many volunteers to help out at Pour Day. Each year, we have about 40-50 volunteers help mix and construct our canoe.
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Mix Team:
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Measures and batches cementitious materials and aggregates into bags
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Prepares buckets for mixing
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Measures admixtures and water into cups
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Construction Team:
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Fabricates the styrofoam mold
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Sets up the tension system
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Cuts out the fiberglass mesh layers
2
During Pour Day
Members mix the batched materials provided by Mix Team with mixing drills, "flipping the bucket" (transferring the mix into a second bucket to ensure thorough mixing) after every two aggregates types are added. ​Fibers are added for tensile strength and pigment are added at the end of the mix process. The slump and consistency of the concrete will be checked by the Mix leads. The finished concrete is placed along the mold, layered with fiberglass mesh, and tensioned with steel wires. We use rolling pins to smooth out the concrete as much as possible to minimize sanding. Aesthetics concrete is placed on the outer layer using neoprene inlays.
3
After Pour Day
The finished canoe is covered in damp burlap and a large plastic film to retain moisture to properly cure for a month. Members must spray the canoe once a day during this period and make sure that the concrete doesn't stick to the burlap as it dries.
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After curing, the construction team sands and epoxy the canoe to smooth out the final product as well as ready the transporter mechanism to safely transport the canoe for competition. They work alongside the aesthetics team to design and build the display table for PSWS, which details our canoe and process to the judges.