NYU Concrete Canoe team sets records and presents sustainability innovations at national championship

Posted:
July 29, 2024

the team posing with their canoe with mountain range in background

This year's concrete canoe team is the first all-rookie team in the history of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) ever to qualify for the Concrete Canoe nationals. The team finished 8th in the nation overall.

When the NBA announces its all-rookie team, sports fans get justifiably excited about what the future could hold for the talented players who’ve been tapped. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1970, Magic Johnson in 1980, Shaquille O'Neal in 1993 — the sheer potential represented in that list each year is jaw-dropping, and many of the athletes earning all-rookie honors go on to make an indelible mark on the game.

This year at NYU Tandon, we had our own all-rookie team generating similar buzz: the 2023-2024 Concrete Canoe cohort, which was, in an unprecedented turn of events, made up solely of first-year students, each with the potential to make their own indelible mark as STEM professionals.

Concrete Canoe is part of the Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) initiative, and while VIP participants generally take on increasingly responsible roles as their projects progress, stepping into leadership positions only after multiple semesters, the most recent Concrete Canoe roster had no sophomores, juniors, seniors, or graduate students. “All of the previous members had either graduated or moved on to other activities,” Alex Huang, the team’s captain, explains, “so you could say we were thrown into the deep end.”

Huang had first heard about Concrete Canoe while attending the “Weekend on the Square,” a university-wide event held each spring at which admitted students visit in person to learn firsthand what NYU has to offer. There he met Industry Professor of Civil and Urban Engineering Weihua Jin, who has long advised the team and mentioned it as he showed Huang and other prospective students around his lab.

students carrying canoe into water — The team carrying their zero-cement concrete canoe.

Huang subsequently enrolled at Tandon and, remembering Jin’s enthusiasm, signed on to not only be part of the Concrete Canoe team, but to captain it. (His co-captain is Dwayne Ong, who also helms the Structural Analysis Subteam.)

“I’ll admit that it was nerve-wracking at first, and I wondered a few times what I had gotten myself into,” Huang admits. “But many people stepped up to contribute, and I ultimately assigned subteam leadership roles based on the quality of their work and their dedication to the project. Despite our initial lack of overall experience, we ended up assembling a fantastic team.”

That’s no idle boast: they were the first all-rookie team in the history of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) ever to qualify for the Concrete Canoe nationals, the ultimate stage of an annual competition that challenges teams from universities across the country to fashion a canoe out of the unlikeliest of materials — and prove it fully functional by racing it. (They also made a mark in school history by being the first NYU team to have placed in the top-10 in two separate race categories, landing in 8th place in both women’s and co-ed final sprints.)

Even more impressively, their project proposal and final prototype, both of which garnered 6th-place honors in a field of some 250 teams, featured innovations in the composition of the concrete, the design of the hull, and the construction methods used that led to a decrease in carbon emissions (compared to the industry standard) of 97%, a decrease in construction labor hours (compared to last year’s canoe) of 34%, and a decrease in total construction expenses (compared to last year) of 84%. The team finished 8th in the nation overall, recording a finish in the top 3% of competitors.

“We believe we are the first team ever to have produced a zero-cement and bendable, meshless concrete canoe,” Huang says. “That’s important because concrete is the second-most-used material in the world, after water, and eliminating cement from the mix has an enormously positive environmental impact. Replacing traditional mesh reinforcement with PVA fibers also allowed us to cast the canoe in a single layer, making the finished canoe exceptionally durable and significantly more cost-efficient. We are really happy with what we were able to accomplish as first-year students and have big plans for sophomore year.”

“I had no doubt that the team was going to represent NYU Tandon admirably,” Jin says. “Even had they not achieved the incredible overall ranking of 8th in the nation, they would have deserved high marks for their enthusiasm and bravery in tackling a project that was totally new to them. I’d also like to note that they were among the most diverse teams in the competition, with more than 80% hailing from the Global South, well over half from backgrounds historically underrepresented in STEM, and more than 40% being from majors other than Civil Engineering. They provide solid evidence that the greatest innovations emerge when there are a plurality of voices and perspectives involved in a project.”

Magued Iskander, the chair of the Department of Civil and Urban Engineering, adds, “While the team’s own hard work was the primary driver of their success, thanks are also due to everyone involved in running the MakerSpace and the VIP program, who provide a welcoming home for Concrete Canoe; the other faculty members in the Department, who constitute a staunch cheering section; and the ASCE itself.”

Huang notes that the competition involved literal blood, sweat and tears: “Julia Jakubisiak, a member of our Mix Design and Paddling subteams, suffered a nosebleed during race day, and Anthony Lamelas from the Construction and Paddling subteams injured his hand when his paddle broke 10 seconds into our race,” he said. “Still, it was all worth it, and we hope to break more records (and hopefully not paddles) next year.”