SPORTS

MSU hopes its concrete canoe can win national title

Wes Johnson
WJOHNSON@NEWS-LEADER.COM
MSU Concrete Canoe Team members pound wet concrete onto the form of their 19-foot canoe.

You won't see these canoes plying the Current River or running riffles on the Buffalo.

In fact, the first canoe — made out of concrete — broke in half a few years back and only managed to finish its races thanks to six rolls of hastily applied duct tape.

But this year, a group of engineering students at Missouri State University hope they've got their concrete formula just right so their 19-foot hand-crafted canoe nicknamed "Montezuma" just might win a national title.

"That first canoe a couple years ago weighed more than 400 pounds and was very hard to carry and maneuver," said Kim Brown, an MSU senior and president of the MSU Concrete Canoe Team. "And it broke in half. Our goal with Montezuma is to make it lightweight but strong enough that we don't break it or put a knee through it when we compete."

The team just finished building Montezuma's hull during a daylong effort Sunday, and now must wait 28 days for the concrete to cure and strengthen.

The canoe, still in the wooden form that gave its shape, will be muscled upside down and hopefully will pop free — greased by a layer of Crisco shortening applied to the form. .

The team nicknamed "The Bad News Bears" hopes Montezuma will outperform other concrete canoes during a series of races at a lake near the University of Kansas campus at Lawrence, Kansas, over April 23-25.

MSU faces some tough competition from schools with bigger concrete-canoe budgets — the University of Nebraska, Kansas State University, Kansas University, Oklahoma State, University of Oklahoma, University of Arkansas, and Southern Illinois State Universities at Carbondale and Edwardsville, and MST - Rolla.

Brown said it's been a struggle to raise the $5,000 needed to build the canoe and pay for the trip to the competition site. But cost estimating and project management is a key part of why these future engineers are doing this.

In their future careers they'll likely have to deal with project budgets, detailed bidding requirements, technical calculations and report writing, according to MSU faculty advisor Matt Pierson.

"From an engineering and project management aspect, they'll learn a lot by building this canoe," Pierson said. "Some things are hard to teach except in a real-life setting."

The students first set out to find the best concrete mix that would yield the strongest and lightest hull.

Senior Nathan Jaffe analyzed a variety of concrete cylinders the team mixed then crushed with a machine after they cured to test their strength.

The final mix they chose is so light that the concrete actually floats instead of sinks. Jaffe said it's a blend of cement, polypropylene fibers to resist cracking, and minute hollow glass spheres that look and feel like white beach sand.

The hollow "microspheres" reduce the concrete's weight while making it buoyant.

"We considered using some fly ash from City Utilities' power plant, but while it improves the strength it makes the concrete heavier," he said.

On Sunday, team members mixed batches of their special concrete blend and used their hands to pound the wet concrete against the canoe form. They built three quarter-inch layers, with carbon-fiber mesh sandwiched between two of the layers for extra strength.

Once Montezuma comes out of the form, it'll be sanded smooth and coated with waterproofing sealant. The canoe will be painted turquoise, with red and yellow highlights.

Then it's off to Lake Springfield to see how Montezuma handles with crews of two and four paddlers. At KU, they'll compete in a 400-meter endurance race , slaloming between markers, and several sprint races that require 180-degree turns at the far end.

Some of the boats won't make it. Rescue swimmers are strategically placed — just in case.

"Rolla's canoe sank last year, and so did Arkansas," Jafte noted

MSU Senior Molly Robb helped paddle last year's boat named "Buttermaker," which earned a fourth-place finish. It's on display near the engineering workshop room at MSU's Robert W. Plaster Center for Free Enterprise and Business Development.

What's it like to get a concrete canoe weighing more than 200 pounds moving through water?

"It's a lot heavier than a normal canoe and a lot more bulky and harder to turn," Robb said. "But we didn't end up sinking or overturning or cracking so we were pretty successful."

Jaffe said once the paddlers get the canoe moving, it's a formidable force.

"It builds momentum as you're going along," he said. "But it's kind of like steering a battering ram."

How do you win a concrete canoe race?

While the paddling portion offers some significant bragging rights, the competition sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers isn't just about getting a concrete canoe across a finish line.

•A quarter of a team' score is based on how well it followed design parameters in building the canoe.

•A quarter is based on the team's written design report about how they built the canoe.

•A quarter is based on the team's oral presentation about their project.

•And a quarter of the final score is based on race results.

Members of the MSU Concrete Canoe Team:

Kimberly Brown

Hanna McLemore

Nathan Jaffe

Timothy Pryor

Matthew Koppitz

Molly Robb

Wesley Weimer

Albert Polocoser

Grady Porter

Katrina Smith

Daniel Richards

Reuben Piper

Chris Tennyson