CONSTRUCTION
Crafting a Quality CanoeThe Construction team gets all the teams ideas to then coordinate with them and the project managers to make those ideas possible. They gets those ideas and execute them using an engineer's most powerful tools, experience and creativity.
From creating the mold for the canoe to the sanding of the canoe afterwards for that final quality check. Join the Construction team for hands-on experience on how ideas are carried out and made possible. If interested fill out the following form. Time: Tuesday & Thursday @4pm Location: Machine Yard (Behind Engineering Build Near Room E118) |
Mold FabricationConcrete needs a form to take its shape. In this case the shape is a canoe. The Hull Design team devises a design using AutoCAD Civil 3D and then converts them into files for the construction team to begin construction of the mold.
The Construction team uses those files by plugging them into our university's CNC Water Jet machine to shape individual foam pieces to then assemble together to create the Canoe mold! |
Tension System AssemblyThe structural team designs a tensions system and its only possible to do thanks to the creative minds of the construction team. Tensioning concrete is crucial for the canoe to survive the waters during race day.
Learn what it means to pre vs post tension concrete and hopefully the canoe won't snap in half in the process. |
Table, Stands, DisplayThe creative minds of the aesthetics team can come up with some crazy designs for our canoe, competition display, and much more. However who is gonna make those those crazy ideas a reality?
The Construction Team! SDSU Concrete Canoe has seen some clever ways to create beautiful and feasible designs for the competition. |
DEMOLDING A CANOEOnce the concrete has cured and taken form of a canoe we have to get that mold we used to do it off. This can be a make or break moment for concrete canoe. If it can't come off it can take a WHOLE day to dig out or worse it breaks the canoe as you take it off.
That's why great care is taken when designing our mold release technique. SDSU has employed many different ways from using different coatings on our EPS foam mold to using different form release agents. |
POUR DAY PREPMany different steps are involved in creating a canoe for the SDSU team. The big task for the construction team is that the mold is formed prior to Pour Day. During Pour Day the construction team is in charge of making sure that the the concrete is poured/placed on the form and that the canoe has a consistent thickness. They also place our reinforcement scheme as quick as possible to prevent delays.
Coordination with the aesthetics team and mix team is key to getting a beautifully colored and constructed canoe. |