Our 2014 Pour Day for Concrete Canoe went well, with three layers of concrete and two layers of carbon fiber grid reinforcement going into our homemade mold in about ten hours of work. Roughly fifteen members helped out including a few dedicated non-canoe-team helpers. We finished off the bulkheads, so the only remaining concrete placement will be for the edges and any patches.
Finishing off the mold, start time: 10:30am
Covering the mold with contact paper
The rush of helpers is here
Smoothing all the cracks
Laying ropes to gauge the concrete’s thickness
Waiting for concrete
laying more ropes
Mixing the first batch of concrete! Start time: noon.
Placing the first layer, in sections
Kelly and Noah placing the first layer
Smoothing the first layer of concrete
Smoothing the first layer of concrete
Preparing dry concrete mix in the mix room
Placing the first layer
Elise and Rosa, still mixing endless buckets of concrete
Lucy and Erin weight concrete ingredients
First layer of reinforcement, second layer of concrete
Still mixing concrete
Breaking apart fibers in the mix room
(late) lunch break: pizza!
Several people spent the whole day making concrete in the mix room!
Weighing stuff for concrete in the mix room
Completed first layer, with most of the second layer
Second layer in progress
Second layer in progress
Finishing the first layer on the ends
Working on the ends
Lucy and Kelly placing concrete
Second layer of reinforcement, third (final) layer of concrete
We held our second general meeting of the semester and hosted the ASCE Younger Members Forum Student Roundup, with several other universities in attendance.
Lots and lots of scrumptious food from Pasta Roma. Yum!
Getting ready for our meeting! Everyone seems to be enjoying the food!
Berkeley and Alice are busy preparing their notecards for something awesome!
A networking activity! So that’s what the notecards were for! Practical, helpful, and most definitely fun!
Lots of good conversations are to be had at our general meetings!
Our Concrete Canoe team is going to be amazing this year. Be sure to talk to Jake and Nick to get involved! And check out that theme! Planets! Whoa!
Our bold and fearless leader, the president of our chapter, Elise! Yay!
We had a great time at the YMF Student Roundup as well! We hosted many other schools from the region, and got a chance to meet some young professionals currently working in the civil field.
It was so much fun! Lots of interesting conversations! Be sure to join us next semester! We’ll be looking for you!
The final day of PSWC 2013 included the Steel Bridge competition, the Geotechnical competition, Concrete Bowling and Horseshoes, the Soccer tournament, and the award ceremony.
Steel bridge photos are by Lance Hill.
The first competition of the days was concrete bowling/horseshoes.
We were disqualified from bowling because we didn’t know there was a weight limit, and we didn’t have enough team members anyway, so we headed over to the horseshoes event.
We won one point in horseshoes, with only one concrete horseshoe breaking, beating our direct opponents 1-0!
Meanwhile, the steel bridge competition was beginning at Pardee Plaza
The steel bridge team talks with the judges.
The team strategizes
The clock starts!
The team assembles the bridge.
Another view of bridge assembly,
Final assembly.
Judges evaluate our work.
Our cheering section!
The team adds the load to the bridge
loading the bridge
loading the bridge
loading the bridge
loading the bridge
The bridge is evaluated, with Mudd Hall in the background
Our bridge team captains discuss the competition
the team rests during judging
The bridge team poses in front of Mudd Hall
Team members pose on the bridge
Meanwhile, the Geotechnical design competition occurred at e-quad.
Our team prepares for competition.
Since we were hosting, several USC ASCE members were recruited to aid in judging.
Our team prepares to cut up their paper.
Our team at work.
Other schools load their designs with sand.
The competition involves creating a retaining wall out of paper that can hold both static and dynamic loads.
The CBU box, just after its failure during dynamic loading.
Our team begins to load the 500 pound of sand into the box
loading sand
There’s a strategy to ensuring the sand settles an condenses as much as possible.
Another school places their wall into their box.
Our team continues loading
The competition had many onlookers, with four schools competing at a time.
We finish up our loading.
Scoping out the intended position of the static load.
When we took the box side off, our wall held!
The wall held well with only minor leakage past the one-minute deadline
Then it failed very soon after, before additional load could be applied.
However, we did much better than in past years
The 2013 Geotech Team in competition at PSWC
While each team was responsible for filling their box with sand, we had to move it back into a pile after every school finished since we ran the event.
Our team poses with their technical board.
Other teams compete
Other teams compete
Other teams compete
Other teams compete
the competition from afar
Other teams compete
Other teams compete
A very successful design!
We were in a pretty nice spot for the competition
Some schools brought huge cheering sections
After the competition, we had to carry all of the sand back out.
The bricks got some nice fresh sand between them
After the award ceremony in the evening, the environmental team poses with their first-place trophy
All of the USC ASCE 2013 PSWC participants after the award ceremony.
Race day was a blast! In addition to the canoe races, the volleyball tournament, impromptu, mystery event, and surveying competition were held today, all at Santa Fe Dam. And, all 1,000 conference participants were treated to Doc’s cooking for lunch.
Photos by Lance Hill and various USC ASCE members (sorry, too many to credit individually).
Once again, we greeted KAP at 5am. Fortunately, we had already packed everything for race day.
Once we got to Santa Fe Dam, the canoe went straight into the water. It floats!
Swamp test: completely submerge the canoe to prove it can resurface. Our canoe floats too well to swamp…
Bailing the water from the canoe after the swamp test.
Canoe on the water
Getting ready for races.
First team goes out.
Can you find our canoe? (The yellow boat is the lifeboat, not the canoe)
One race down, four to go.
The canoe’s holding up remarkably well.
We discovered a fairly large crack that formed in transit. But it hadn’t propagated after the first race.
Heading out for the men’s slalom/endurance race.
Canoe still looks great.
Women’s sprints.
We were up against Cal Poly SLO in all of our heats…
Our canoe weighed in around 400 pounds, making straight steering nearly impossible.
SLO’s canoe was about 50 pounds.
Meanwhile, the volleyball tournament was happening, along with other events.
Oscar serves the ball.
We were somewhat competitive in the volleyball tournament but ended up losing our first match.
The lunch team prepares.
Doc (lesser known as Professor Wong) was recruited to cook for everyone.
Doc butchers slab after slab of meat and chicken.
1,000 hungry engineers await Doc’s cooking.
Doc’s excellent lunch was a highlight of race day.
Afterword, Doc was unable to type our class notes for days because his hands were sore from butchering hundreds of pounds of frozen meat.
The canoe’s still solid.
The coed team heads out for our last race of the day.
This is the first time in several years that our canoe has made it all the way to the last, coed race.
Our senior leaders raced together for the first time.
Lining up at the starting line.
The coed race.
Coming in from the coed race, canoe still intact.
Three other schools dropped out throughout the day due to broken canoes, including one that split completely in half mid-race.
Our canoe made it all the way!
Our coed race team prepared to disembark.
Some water filled into the canoe during the races, but not much.
Thomas prepares to throw heasitant canoe captain Erin into the water after the last race.
Erin: “no! no! no! no! no!”
Everyone’s thrilled with our canoe’s success.
We brought the canoe out of the water to prepare to load up.
It takes the entire team to move the canoe, seeing as it’s around 400 pounds.
The canoe all ready to head back to USC.
But, upon arrival, we discovered that the ride home caused severe dual cracks.
The canoe cradle bent severely under the weight of the canoe, and didn’t properly secure it.
A closer look at one side’s crack. The damage ocurred right in the middle of the canoe.
Since it’s so hard to move the canoe back to the basement, we unloaded to the pavement.
The highlight of PSWC day 1 is the concrete canoe and steel bridge aesthetics competition. Since we’re hosting PSWC this year, the event took place at the heart of the USC campus, in Alumni Park. Various other events took place today, including the Environmental Design competition.
We’re all thrilled to see KAP at 5:30am
KAP was bustling with activity at this early hour
The bridge is ready for display
We had to fill 100s of gallons of water for the environmental competition, since we’re hosting
The environmental system heads up the lift
Erin rides a cart past Tommy Trojan. We had to get the cart back to KAP for another load of stuff somehow…
Pulling water to Pardee Plaza for Environmental Competition
Admiring our just-re-stained, barely finished canoe cross section while waiting for the lift
The Steel Bridge rides up the lift
EVERYONE had to be at KAP at 5:30 since Canoe, Bridge, and Environmental all had events starting at 7am. Oh, and did I mention we’re hosting?
Moving the canoe. I’m not getting into the process of getting it up on the lift…
Rolling the canoe from KAP to Alumni Park
Rolling the canoe from KAP to Alumni Park
Rolling the canoe from KAP to Alumni Park
Rolling the canoe from KAP to Alumni Park
Rolling the canoe from KAP to Alumni Park
Rolling the canoe from KAP to Alumni Park
Rolling the canoe from KAP to Alumni Park
Rolling the canoe from KAP to Alumni Park
Rolling the canoe from KAP to Alumni Park
Rolling the canoe from KAP to Alumni Park
Stopping by the environmental competition to borrow tape.
The team prepared extensively for the competition this year
We also had turn all of that water into wastewater… since we’re hosting…
Canoe, up on the stands, ready for aesthetics work
Steel Bridge team assembles the bridge in alumni park
Steel Bridge team assembles the bridge in alumni park
Setting up for aesthetics.
Setting up swords under the bow and stern.
Our stuff, with Cal Poly SLO’s in the background. Their canoe budget is about 10x ours.
Many teams have lots of money for aesthetics, so they can create elabotate themes and amazing stands. We did pretty good with pretty much nothing.
As you can see by the lack of people on Trousdale, it’s still before 8am.
Assembling the bridge.
Our bridge, in front of SLO’s setup.
Our canoe stand features the trojan values and images that represent USC culture.
Our theme, SC Traveler, is in honor of our school since we’re co-hosting PSWC this year.
Our display board came out pretty good this year.
Bridge, Canoe, ready for judging.
The Canoe and Display.
Post-judging, the display is left up for viewing all day. It’s still just 9:30am.
Back at the environmental competition.
Our team talks with the environmental judges.
Back to supervise the canoe in the afternoon.
Now that the sun’s out, our cardinal and gold bridge and canoe really shine.
Thomas explains USC ASCE to campus passers-by.
The Canoe in front of Doheny Library.
Erin, Concrete Canoe Co-Captain, poses with the canoe
Erin, Concrete Canoe Co-Captain, poses with the canoe
Sian Poses with the canoe
Our Display from another angle
Our Display from another angle
Our Display from another angle
Our Display from another angle
Our Display from afar
Cal Poly SLO Canoe, front/right, our canoe, back/left
The Steel Bridge
The Steel Bridge
The Steel Bridge
Our other canoe co-captain is studying abroad in South Africa this semester. But he’s with us in spirit, and is pictured in the leftmost circle on our canoe stand.
The Steel Bridge
The Concrete Canoe Cutaway Section looked better and better as the day wore on, as the hours-old concrete cured…
The Steel Bridge
Time to disassemble the aesthetics display and get everything ready for tomorrow’s races.
Cleaning up. The steel bridge has once again been condensed to fit onto a single cart.
Clean up from afar.
We ran over to KAP to start loading the truck with stuff for race day (to be held at Santa Fe Dam).
Since we’re co-hosting, and in charge of lunch, we need to load tons of drinks and stuff in addition to the canoe.
Stuff waiting to ride up the lift.
Lots of drinks, and canoe paddling materials, await moving from the lift into the truck.
Where’s the food?
We have a special lunch planned.
Loading stuff into the truck.
Loading stuff into the truck.
Back at the Canoe.
We’re the only ones left.
One canoe, in Alumni Park.
Ready to load the canoe in the truck, we realized we need to cover some exposed reinforcement.
So, actually we had to make another last-minute concrete patch mix.
THIS is the latest we’ve ever put new concrete on the canoe, but at least it’s only a little.
The bridge rides back downstairs, and we’re ready to collapse, then get up at 4 again tomorrow morning.
Unfortunately, we ran into some snags with our mold removal process. The foam-release agent didn’t work, so the mold bonded to the concrete and it took three days to get it off… At least we didn’t have a male mold!
End of Mold Removal Day 1
Begin Day 2
Yes, we’re digging around under the canoe here
#rollingaroundinfoamonthefloor
Day Three
Ready for the big move to elevate the canoe on the stands
We need to make a cross-section of our canoe showing the three layers of concrete and two layers of reinforcement for our canoe display, so we did a mini-pour-day. The one section took only about 90 minutes and just a few people; much more efficiently than pouring the actual canoe.
Meanwhile, the canoe’s almost ready to de-mold…
Placing Concrete
A low angle of the full canoe
Another creative canoe angle
Working on the second layer of the section
Dry concrete elements await mixing
We filled a few cylinders to strength-test our mix one last time
Packing cylinders. We ended up with a sizable amount of extra mix.
