Poly eBriefs

Team members steer their “green” canoe into 11th place at the 2008 National Concrete Canoe Competition in Montreal. Sixty percent of the glass used in the canoe’s concrete mix was recycled from deposits made on NYU-Poly’s campus.
After winning first place at the Metropolitan Regional Concrete Canoe Competition in late August, NYU-Poly’s Student Chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) took to the waters of Montreal on June 19 - 21 to compete in the National contest.The team came in 11th place overall, 7th in final product design, and won the Spirit of Competition award for focusing on sustainability and using recycled glass in their concrete mix.

Eugene Fuks, the team’s captain, said that other schools and judges were “impressed by our innovation and said they would somehow incorporate it into the rules for next year.”

Has this year’s team created a legacy for “green” canoes at NYU-Poly? Mr. Fuks notes that the majority of this year’s team (Margaret Cwikla, Thomas Moorhoff, Minelly DeCoo, Shivani Patel, Kaliaeja Taylor and Jennifer Salazar) are seniors. “Next year’s team,” he says, “has a lot of work to do. Since we worked one-on-one with them, we feel they are capable of continuing with the green techniques as long as they are determined.”

Next year’s ASCE executive board plans to host the regional concrete canoe competition as well as the regional steel bridge competition, another ASCE activity that challenges students to solve real-world engineering problems.

To learn more about the team’s regional win and canoe design, read Engineering the ‘Impossible’: students win concrete canoe competition