RPI Concrete Canoe​

RPI Concrete Canoe 

RPI Concrete Canoe teams have improved drastically over the years.  In 2012 our team took home 6th place in the canoe races, the 2013 team took home 5th, and the 2014 team took home 3rd.  This year we hope to continue the improvement.  Each year RPI competes in the Central New York Regional ASCE Concrete Canoe Competition.  We compete against teams from around the area including two teams from Canada, SUNY Buffalo, West Point, and Cornell.  RPI has an average budget of $3000 a year, most of which covers the cost of a mold.  Some teams, however, have budgets well above $30,000 but most teams have between $2000 and $10,000.  While having a large budget helps in many ways, most of the top competitor's boats fall in the $3000 to $6000 range.  Besides the actual canoe, money plays a small role in a large portion of the competition, being as much of the competition is the written paper, the oral presentation, display board, and the Mead Paper.  The Mead Paper is a national competition consisting of a written paper and presentation based on the ethics of civil engineering with a prompt determined by ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers).  Last year the prompt was "Is it the civil engineers or the contractor’s responsibility if a building fails?" and RPI managed to take 1st in the Mead Paper at the 2014 regional competition.   For more information on RPI's Concrete Canoe feel free to email us or visit: http://rpiasce.weebly.com/concrete-canoe.html