Drexel University’s Concrete Canoe competition recently won 1st place overall at the 2014 ASCE Mid-Atlantic Regionals Competition held April 11-13 at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. As a result of this win, the team will be competing at the National Competition at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown on June 19-21.
The Drexel team placed as follows in each of the individual competitions:
-
Final Product 1st
-
Design Paper: 1st
-
Women’s Endurance Race: 3rd
-
Men’s Endurance Race: 3rd
-
Women’s Sprint: 3rd
-
Men’s Sprint: 1st
-
Co-ed Sprint: 3rd
-
Races Overall: 3rd
-
Presentation: Did Not Place in Top 3
The team has spent the entire academic year working extremely hard to produce a high quality overall product. Drage is the name of this year’s canoe which is Norwegian for Dragon. The overall theme is Amusement Park. The canoe is 20 feet in length with a compressive strength of 2200psi. The concrete mixture consists of cementitious materials (Cement, Metakaolin, Fly Ash, Lime) and fine aggregates (glass microspheres, expanded glass spheres, expanded shale, cork).
Seventeen Drexel students are part of this team, all hailing from different College of Engineering Departments as well as the School of Biomedical Engineering and the Construction Management Program. These student participants are Chris Magruder (CAEE), Nate Barry (CAEE), Santiago Uribe (CAEE), Michael Setaro (CAEE), Michael Johnescu (CAEE), Kathie Cheng (CAEE), Juan Hidalgo (CAEE), Paulina Gawor (CAEE), Leonard Lui (CAEE), Steve Kreeley (CAEE), Doug Boyer (Const. Mgmt.), Colleen Hyde (MSE), Ashley Rodriguez (BioMed), Nrupen Zaver (MSE), Frederick Wachter (MEM), Dylan Eckels (MSE), Alex Gagliardi (MEM).
“This is the most multi-disciplinary team we have ever had and each student brings a unique perspective to the project,” stated Dr. Joseph Martin, ASCE faculty advisor and Professor in the Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering Department.
This is the twelfth time Drexel University’s Concrete Canoe team has qualified for the National Competition. As captain of the team, CAEE Department junior Christopher Magruder has spent countless hours orchestrating the project and overseeing the team. “We have all worked so hard to improve upon the already successful results of last year’s regional competition. Now we look forward to Nationals and hope to continue our success.”