Host of Spring 2007 Texas Section Meeting and Concrete Canoe Competition

The University of Texas at Tyler (UT-Tyler) hosted the 2007 Texas-Mexico Section Concrete Canoe Competition on 13-14 April 2007 in Tyler, Texas at Lake Tyler East. The University of Texas at Arlington (UT-Arlington) was listed as the actual host since The UT-Tyler does not have an official ASCE Student Chapter yet. This was their first year as a UT-Tyler student organization. They plan to apply for Chapter status this fall. We would like to thank Professor Jim Williams, UT-Arlington Chapter advisor, who formally requested insurance coverage for the competition.

Friday’s activities included a student paper competition, a student business meeting, canoe judging, canoe oral presentations, and a K’Nexercise competition. The student paper competition and business meeting were held at the Tyler Convention Center. The judging of canoes, canoe oral presentations and K’Nexercise (hosted by the UT-Tyler Civil Engineering Student Club) were held at The University of Texas at Tyler. The Texas Section Friday night banquet was also held at The University of Texas at Tyler Library. The banquet location was an effort to highlight the new rose in bloom in East Texas – the new Civil Engineering program at The University of Texas at Tyler.

The canoe races were held at Lake Tyler East. Gregg Lassen, Vice-President of Business Affairs, The University of Texas at Tyler, hosted all of the students on his property at Lake Tyler East. In addition to the concrete canoe races, the UT-Tyler students hosted a T-shirt and tug-of-war competitions as well as a barbeque. The hot meal was a welcome addition since the weather was unseasonably cold – approximately 35-40 degrees with wind gusts up to 30 mph. 

The Texas Section conference kicked off on Thursday with an Order of the Engineer Ceremony hosted for the Texas Section by Drs Welch, Nelson, and Beams, College of Engineering and Computer Science, The University of Texas at Tyler. About 20 students attended the Thursday night social hour at the Convention Center.

On Friday, about 20 students attended the breakfast before kick-off of the technical sessions. Dr. Jim Nelson, Dean, College of Engineering and Computer Science, UT-Tyler was the guest speaker where he spoke about Policy 465 and the Body of Knowledge. The winners of the student paper competition were announced at the honoree luncheon on Friday. The presenter from UNAM was not able to cross into Texas so another student jumped in and made the presentation.

The student paper results are listed in Table 1.

Table 1. Student Paper Results

The student business meeting occurred immediately after the student paper competition. There were about 65 students present for both the paper competition and the business meeting. The following schools were represented: University of Houston, The University of Texas at Austin, The University of Texas at Tyler, The University of Texas at San Antonio, The University of Texas at El Paso, The University of Texas at Arlington, Texas Tech University, Lamar University, UNAM (Mexico City), Texas A&M, and Prairie View A&M. The Spring 2008 Concrete Canoe competition will be hosted by ad held at: Corpus Christie, Texas by UT- Kingston.

Canoe and oral presentation judging began at 3 PM at UT-Tyler (Figures 1-3). Results are in Table 2. Over 100 students along with 30 Texas section ASCE members attended the Friday night banquet hosted at The University of Texas at Tyler.

Table 2. Judging results on Friday

Figure 1. University of Houston – Winning team

Figure 2. Prairie View’s Canoe

Figure 3. UNAM’s canoe

Racing at Lake Tyler East began at 9 AM after a captains briefing. Aluminum canoes were made available to allow UT-Tyler students to race and enjoy/experience the best part of the competition. As it turned out, Texas Tech’s canoe broke on the way to the competition (note low performance on Final Product). UT-Tyler and Texas Tech went head to head the entire day. During the Coed Sprints, Lamar University’s canoe sank when the floatation broke loose. The extremely cold weather prevented an immediate recovery. The canoe was recovered recently after the tremendous amount of rain and flooding in East Texas subsided. UT-Tyler students scuba dived to locate and bring the canoe to shore. The canoe is now at The University of Texas at Tyler. The name of the canoe was the Phoenix – appropriate as it rose from the depths. 

UT-Tyler students feed over 180 students and guests for lunch on Saturday. The hot meal was welcomed by all since the weather was a high of 40oF.

Figure 4. Food line.
The canoe results are listed below in Table 3. The ultimate winner was The University of Houston (located in Table 4).

Table 3. Race results

Table 4. Final Results

Figure 5. Racing at Lake Tyler East

Figure 6. University of Houston – After Winning

Monetary prizes were provided to the top three schools in each of the additional competitions held at UT-Tyler: K’Nexercise, Tug-of-War, and T-shirt.

The results of the K’Nexercise on Friday are listed in Table 5:

Table 5. K’Nex results

Figure 7. UT-Tyler team at K’Nex Competition

Figure 8. Texas Tech University at K’Nex Competition

Figure 9. Loading the bridge that held the largest load

The results of the T-Shirt competition on Saturday are located in Table 6.

Table 6. T-Shirt results

The results of the Tug-of-War competition on Saturday are located in Table 7.

Table 7. Tug-of-War results

Figure 10. Tug-of-war competition

Figure 11. UT-Tyler in Tug-of-War competition.

Many participants made a point of thanking the hosts for the best event in years, especially the adding of additional events which allowed other schools to compete and win in an event other than just the concrete canoe. Texas Tech University was especially excited that aluminum canoes were present so that they could still compete in the races for school spirit.

Figure 12. Aluminum canoe races….?

Figure 13. Future Concrete Canoe competitors

The University of Texas at Tyler and UNAM won school spirit awards for their displayed spirit during all events.