Concrete Canoe 2024
Hello! We are the 2024 Mines ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) Concrete Canoe Team. We would love to tell the story of where we are planning to go this year, celebrating 150 years of engineering excellence at the Colorado School of Mines!
Team Members
Inga Almgren, B.S. Civil, CFO Ialmgren@mines.edu
Nick Beckman, B.S. Civil Minor: Economics, Structural Lead Nbeckman@mines.edu
Nathan Commissariat, B.S. Civil, Communications Nathancommissariat@mines.edu
Julie Friedman, B.S. Civil, Mix Design/Theme Jfriedman@mines.edu
Riley Miller, B.S. Civil, Hull Design Rmiller5@mines.edu
Jeremiah Vaille, B.S. Civil Minor: Economics, Mix Design Jdvaille@mines.edu
The main objective of our project is to build a full-scale canoe entirely out of concrete that floats and performs well in races. We plan to accomplish this through collaboration with industry professionals, the Bureau of Reclamation, professors here at Mines, and advisors from past concrete canoe teams.
We will compete in the ASCE Concrete Canoe competition at the regional level, and hopefully earn a spot at the national competition! The events for the competition include submitting an 18-page report on our methods and process, displaying our full-scale canoe, a technical presentation followed by a Q&A session about our design process, and then races where we will compete against other schools for the fastest race times and highlight the durability of our canoe. As a new part of this year’s competition, they have also introduced an infographic where we will explain our design and production processes in a visual format using pictures.
Another exciting change to the rules is that we can use stains! Our theme this year is Van Gogh’s Starry Night, allowing us to take advantage of using colors to make our Canoe look incredible! We plan to use a mixture of stains and pigmented concrete to create a painting to be proud of on our Canoe. To celebrate the 150 years of Mines history, we plan to show a scene of Gugenheim and the M in place of the village that is traditionally seen in the painting. This will allow us to highlight a couple of aspects of Mines beautiful campus at the regional and (hopefully) national level!
We are extremely excited to be learning so much about lightweight concrete mix design! Before we can race our canoe, we must prove it will float even if it breaks by submerging it in water and then letting it go, a test called the swamp test. We are also excited to learn about hull design! We want our canoe to be fast in the sprint races, but also be able to turn quickly for the slalom races. Our team is studying up on things other teams have done, as well as learning about hydrodynamic designs.
Our team is planning to hold on to the tradition of Mines Engineering excellence, while also innovating and improving on past year’s designs. One of the big innovations we are implementing is using a male mold instead of a female mold, as has been used in the past few years by Mines teams. A male mold (where we build our canoe from the inside out) will give us better access to the outside of the canoe during the curing process, allowing us to do more aesthetic finishes. We will also be able to spread the concrete more consistently, as we will not need to reach down as far for placement and will be able to easily access the placement surface.
Another time-saving innovation we are planning to implement is ordering some larger foam blocks and cutting them with a CNC machine for accuracy. In the past, many teams have used insulation boards. Using a projector, they traced out 100+ cross sections, then cut them out using hand tools and fastened them all together. We hope that by having fewer cross sections, our team will spend less time cutting foam and be able to put that time towards creating a concrete mix design that allows our concrete to be lighter than water! However, this new method will be more expensive, as we are buying foam directly from a manufacturer instead of insulation foam from a store.
In order for us to make these innovations and utilize these new methods, we need your help! Your support will allow us to produce one of the best canoe’s Mines has seen and hopefully make it to nationals to represent our school!
November 2023
What Are We Up To?
We have been finalizing our mix design (our concrete recipe) and preparing for pour day! All of our materials have finally arrived on campus, so we have been working hard to test different mixes to determine what will work best for our canoe! We have successfully created concrete lighter than water, which is very exciting! Our biggest challenge has been figuring out how to cure hydrated lime. We have also been practicing our troweling skills to prepare for our pour day on December 7th! With our theme of Sterrennacht (Starry Night), we have been practicing using pigmented concrete to paint swirls, a moon, stars, and mountains.
How Have We Used Your Support (so far)?
Your support has also enabled us to order some really cool materials we are planning to use in our canoe! To make our concrete extremely lightweight (think a 250-pound canoe instead of a 350-pound canoe) we are using several lightweight materials. Instead of using cement, we are using a mixture of hydrated lime, slag cement, and cenospheres. These will act as the glue that holds our concrete together. Instead of traditional sand and gravel aggregates, we will use some very lightweight structural fines and perlite microspheres. Because our microspheres are so small, our structural fines work as coarse aggregates in our mix, allowing us to have a good interlocking particle distribution without large gravel pieces. Not having large gravel pieces will allow us to have much thinner layers of concrete for our canoe, and also help our mix to be more lightweight.
Perlite? Isn’t that used in soil?
Yes! Perlite is often used as a soil additive to help prevent compaction and enhance soil drainage. It is the white stuff seen in potting soil mixes and can be added in large quantities to help with succulent planting. However, that is not the only thing it is used for! Perlite is a volcanic glass that is often produced from the hydration of obsidian. It expands greatly when heated and becomes useful in a variety of applications due to its low density. In addition to being a soil additive, it is used as an exfoliant in some cosmetics, in aquatic filtration (pool filters), and in construction and manufacturing. We plan to use it in our concrete as an aggregate. Its low density will help our concrete to be much lighter weight than if we used sand!
For more updates (and pictures!) follow us on Instagram @mines_concrete_canoe!
October 2023
What Are We Up To?
We have been testing concrete cylinders (to determine compressive strength), finalizing our plans for aesthetics, and getting our hull design broken up into chunks that can be cut out of foam using the CNC machine! We have also built a couple of baby boats to test different approaches to laying concrete and practice with mold release. We are working hard to get ready to pour our canoe on December 7, which at the time of writing is just 4 weeks away!
Crowdfunding through the Mines Goldmine!
Support from family, friends, and corporate donors has enabled the team to order all materials required for our canoe, including several lightweight materials. Instead of utilizing the commonly used Portland cement and coarse aggregates, we are using a mixture of hydrated lime, slag cement, and cenospheres, which will act as the glue that holds our concrete together. Instead of traditional sand and gravel aggregates, we will use some very lightweight structural fines and microspheres (small glass bubbles). All in all, a pretty unique mix design. If you are also interested in supporting our team, you can visit the provided link here, until the campaign is scheduled to end November 28th!
Cenospheres, Cenospheres, Cenospheres!!
Cenospheres represent an essential aspect of our team’s innovative mix design! Cenospheres are lightweight spherical particles that are a byproduct of burning coal in power plants. They are very lightweight because they are hollow and filled with inert air. Cenospheres have pozzolanic reactivity, which means they react with the cementitious material’s calcium hydroxide (which is formed when you add water to the cementitious materials). They help make our concrete more lightweight, but also have the added benefit of increasing its strength and making it easier to spread, which will be helpful for canoe construction!
For more updates (and pictures!) follow us on Instagram @mines_concrete_canoe!
The team!
Hull design rendering
