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Two hundred and fifty pounds of concrete won’t float just any boat.
But with engineering students from the University of Windsor at the helm, the hefty vessel is unsinkable.
During an open house at the Ed Lumley Centre for Engineering Innovation on Friday, six fourth-year civil engineering students showed off their prize-winning concrete canoe — a watercraft that took nine months to make.
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“Our main objective was to create a lightweight yet durable canoe,” Jocelyn Boismier told the Star.
“It started off with research into what makes a canoe perform well in terms of the streamline, the hull shape, as well as the concrete mix.”
In May, the University of Windsor’s team placed 10th out of 21 universities at the Canadian National Concrete Canoe Competition in Quebec. Among Ontario universities, UWindsor’s team placed third. It also received the award for best-quality canoe that could be mass-produced.
This year’s canoe weighed 250 pounds, a significant reduction from last year’s 800-pound vessel.
The Windsor group spent several months testing various concrete mixes and designing their canoe. It underwent academic, technical, and sports element evaluations, and had to float up to the surface after being pushed underwater.
“Overall, it was a lot of hard work, but we’re happy with it,” said Luca Quenneville.
“What we’re hoping for next year and the years to come is that each team progressively gets better and better, and that we end up placing top three or even winning at some point.”
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“Take our iterations from this year and improve it further for next year — that’s what we’ll be telling next year’s team.”
The canoe was among the dozens of capstone projects by fourth-year engineering students — including mechanical, automotive, materials, civil and environmental, and electrical and computer engineering — on display at the university’s Ed Lumley Centre for Engineering Innovation on Friday.
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Some other student projects showcased integrated bicycle safety systems, vehicle-to-vehicle communication, autonomous Mars rover, autonomous vehicle technologies, and more.
Electrical and computer engineering students Patricia Papp, Chloe Crawford, and Justin Kraus showed off their self-playing guitar, which uses a computer, transistor board, and small mechanisms to produce music on their acoustic instrument.
“I think it’s a really good demonstration for people who don’t really know a lot about engineering,” Crawford said of Friday’s open house.
“You can hear the guitar, you can see it play — you can see the lights go off and how it works.”
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