WKU Concrete Canoe Team
Sixth In National Competition
June 24, 2003
Bowling Green, Ky. - Western Kentucky University's concrete canoe team remains among the best in the nation with a sixth-place finish in national competition last weekend in Philadelphia.
"Illusion," built by WKU civil engineering students, won the Ohio Valley regional competition this spring and advanced to the 2003 National Concrete Canoe Competition at Drexel University. The canoe won best-finished product and was selected by the competition sponsor, Master Builders Inc., for display at its world headquarters in Cleveland.
"We're staying right there with the elite engineering schools," said Matthew Dettman, the James D. Scott Professor of Civil Engineering and the team's adviser.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison won the competition. They were followed by Universite Laval, the Canadian champion; Berkeley; Clemson and Oklahoma.
"Once you get in that top range, it's really tight," Dettman said, adding teams could be separated by as few as three points.
"We had a really good experience," he said. "No one got hurt and we maintained our status as one of the best in the country. We're now associated with the upper echelon in the civil engineering world because of this competition."
Western's concrete canoe team has now finished in the top 10 nationally for the past four years. In 2002, WKU students posted their best finish ever in the national competition – fourth overall and first in the academic portion. Western finished eighth overall in 2001 and 10th in 2000.
A rule change forced the team to be more creative this year, Dettman said. The canoes could not be painted and large graphics were not allowed. Western's team used creative color mixtures in the concrete, then cut designs into the concrete and inlaid the designs with different color concrete.
The technique caught the judges' attention, Dettman said, and is likely to be copied by teams next year. "Our team is already asking 'What can we do that no one else will think of,' " he said.
Team members include seniors Deneatra Flener of Morgantown; Chris Bates of Sacramento; Matt Shockley of Mount Washington; Justin Flickinger of Glasgow; Cody Henderson of Morgantown; Josh Moore of Bowling Green; Nick Soards of Glasgow; Andy Mills of Glasgow; Lindsay Parson of Bowling Green; Manuel Ball of Bowling Green; Carla Cage of Auburn; Travis Spidel of Bowling Green; and junior Lindsay Preston of Bowling Green.
More information on the national competition is available online at http://www.cae.drexel.edu/2003nccc/Index.html
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