Boat Designed,Built by Team Lands Berth for Second Time in Three Years

UMass Lowell Image

06/16/2015

Contacts: Nancy Cicco, 978-934-4944 or Nancy_Cicco@uml.edu and Christine Gillette, 978-934-2209 or Christine_Gillette@uml.edu

* M E D I A A D V I S O R Y *
Thursday, June 18, 9:30 a.m.

WHAT: UMass Lowell students will race a concrete canoe they designed and constructed in the championship round of a national collegiate engineering contest for the second time in three years.

Students landed the national berth in the annual Concrete Canoe Competition after winning the New England regional round of the contest in April, beating out collegiate rivals from throughout the Northeast and Canada.

The UMass Lowell team now heads to Clemson University in South Carolina for the contest’s finals, to be held June 20 through June 22. The event will include teams from 22 universities across North America and is organized by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Students will load the concrete canoe into a truck with the goal of transporting it safely from UMass Lowell to the host site – a feat in itself. Before they do, they will display the canoe, explain how they built it and why it floats, and talk about what they will need to do to win the national title.

The canoe weighs 130 pounds and measures 19 feet, 10 inches in length and 27 inches at its widest point and is 13.9 inches deep. At nationals, the canoe will be judged on its engineering, design and construction quality; students’ oral and written presentations on how teammates conducted their work; and how the canoe performs in men’s, women’s and co-ed races. To qualify to race, the canoe must first pass a “swamp test” that demonstrates it can rise to the water’s surface after being submerged while weighed down by 50 pounds of sandbags.

Leading the team is Maureen Kelly of Ashburnham. Her teammates are from Ashland, Barre, Billerica, Canton, Clinton, Dracut, Haverhill, Holliston, Lowell, Lynn, Methuen, Millis, Natick, North Grafton, Pepperell, Plymouth, Quincy, Saugus, Tyngsborough, Westford and Woburn. Derry, N.H., resident Gary Howe, a UMass Lowell graduate who works for the university’s College of Engineering, is the team’s faculty adviser.

WHERE: Cumnock Hall, North Campus, 31 University Ave., Lowell. For directions and parking information, contact UMass Lowell media relations.