2003 Concrete Canoe Corpus Christi The Lamartian .

LU concrete canoe coasts to national competition

4/11/03

Lamar University made history when it took first place overall in the 2003 American Society of Civil Engineers' student concrete canoe competition in Corpus Christi.

Lamar took the top spot for the engineering society's Texas/Mexico Section, competing against nine schools April 5, including Texas A&M University at College Station, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Texas at San Antonio, the University of Texas at Arlington, Texas A&M University at Kingsville, Texas Tech University and the University of Houston. Competitors from Mexico included the University of Monterey in Monterey and the University of La Salle in Mexico City.

Lamar ranked first in most aspects of the competition, including the concrete canoe races, durability, final product and the written presentation. Students ranked second place in oral presentation.

Overall, Lamar students earned 97 points of a total of 100 points for their project. The closest competitor, Texas A&M, received 87 points, said Jonathan Davis of Little Cypress, who led the team with Corey Oldbury of Mauriceville.

LU students will take their concrete canoe to national competition June 20 to 23 at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pa., Davis said.

"We are excited about this award and we're looking forward to national competition," said Jerry Lin, faculty advisor and assistant professor in the Department of Civil Engineering.

This marks the first time Lamar's concrete canoe team will compete at the national level.

Lamar students took second place last year and improved on their technique to earn the top prize, Lin said.

Other members of the student team included Scott Blanchard and Hector Cervantes of Port Arthur; Radmilla Buha of Yugoslavia, Belgrade; Ramanath Ganesh of Jayanagar,Bangalore, India; Kyle Kibodeaux of Orange; Ngoc Le, Chase Mann and Ben Sheffield of Beaumont; Heather Oldbury of Mauriceville; Mary Pickell of Friendswood; Will Rooney of Nederland; and Tim Skinner of Vidor.

The team received outstanding assistance from Lin and civil engineering instructor Hani Thome, Davis said.

Students started working on the project design in late August 2002, and material testing began in October. The team started pouring concrete for its canoe in December, and they began water testing the canoe in mid-March.