September 26, 2006 == MEDIA ADVISORY
A flotilla of cardboard canoes will attempt to traverse a pond on the Calvin College campus at 4 p.m. on Friday, September 29.
The event is the (approximately) 10th annual Cardboard Canoe Contest and student organizers say it's a fun way to expand their budding engineering skills.
"You don't know who’s going to float, who's going to sink and who's going to make it around, and that's part of the fun too," says Calvin senior Eric Wildschut, president of the college's chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).
Typically, he says, a half-dozen student teams take part, observing some key parameters: The canoes must be constructed out of cardboard, plastic sheeting, garbage bags, duct tape and paint (optional and for decoration), and they can be any shape or size, but must be large enough to hold at least two members of the construction team.
The teams race the canoes between two bridges on an on-campus pond located behind the home of college president Gaylen Byker.
"The boats don't last beyond one spin around the pond," Wildschut says. "Some of them don't make it away from the starting block. Some of them, when their creators hop into them, they sink to the bottom."
Calvin engineering professors serve as judges for cardboard canoe contest, and they award two $40 Meijer gift certificates to the winners: one for the fastest canoe and one for the most creatively-constructed canoe.
The contest attracts a throng of students, friends of the canoe-makers, who cheer on their chosen teams.
For the full story see http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2006-07/cardboard-canoe.htm
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Received on Tue Sep 26 14:21:19 2006
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