UAH entry selected “Most Innovative” in 37th Concrete Canoe Competition

Engineering students from The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) designed and built the canoe voted “most innovative” in the 37th annual American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Concrete Canoe Competition. The final phase of the event was staged as part of the 2024 ASCE Civil Engineering Student Championships at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, on June 20-22. The team from UAH, a part of the University of Alabama System, finished 17th overall and received the Innovation Award for developing a new mold removal design. To advance to the finals, the UAH team placed first this past March over 13 universities in the ASCE Gulf Coast Student Symposium held in New Orleans.

“The mold used to cast the concrete is usually ruined in the process of making the canoe,” explains team faculty advisor, Dr. Michael Anderson, chair of the UAH Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and associate dean for Graduate Education & Research. “This year there was emphasis on sustainability, and the UAH team design allowed for the mold to be removed, without damage, to support the option to make multiple canoes using the same mold.”

The ASCE Concrete Canoe event is the society's flagship student competition. Teams spend months leading up to the event by crafting a canoe made entirely out of concrete that is capable of floating and racing against dozens of other competitors. This year’s competition featured nearly 300 civil engineering students from 13 universities in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi who honed their project management skills in a series of challenges. The ASCE Civil Engineering Student Championships are made possible with funding from the ASCE Foundation.

“The UAH team, consisting of students in civil engineering, along with other engineering majors, designed, built and raced a concrete canoe on the Bayou St. John,” Anderson says. “The team finished in first place in the overall competition at the symposium, defeating university teams from Auburn, Mississippi State, Louisiana State and Louisiana Tech, among others.”

"The winners of the ASCE Gulf Coast Student Symposium spent countless hours preparing for these competitions, and their work stood out among their peers,” said ASCE President Marsia Geldert-Murphey. “The skills they developed as a team are crucial as they prepare for their civil engineering careers."

For nearly 40 years, ASCE student chapters have competed in the Concrete Canoe Competition. The competition challenges civil engineering students to apply classroom principles to a real-world task while utilizing project management and team-building skills. The challenge evaluates teams on design and construction, a technical proposal, a formal business presentation and five separate races.

The ASCE Civil Engineering Student Championships are organized by ASCE and hosted annually by a university student chapter, thanks in part to funds provided by the ASCE Foundation. Founded in 1852, the American Society of Civil Engineers represents more than 150,000 civil engineers worldwide and is America's oldest national engineering society.