Rice concrete canoe team finishes seventh

4/28/2015

The Rice University concrete canoe team finished seventh in a field of 17 in the regional Texas-Mexico leg of the National Concrete Canoe Competition (NCCC), sponsored annually by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).  

“We placed fourth in oral presentation. Our team had the fewest members out of all the teams. Next year we want to practice more, and I think we’ll end up doing better. Sagittarius did pretty well,” said team co-captain Jackie Zhao, a junior in civil and environmental engineering (CEE), referring to the name of the team’s canoe.

The competition was held April 24-25 at Lamar University in Beaumont. The first-place finisher was the team from Texas A&M University, which will move to the national finals June 20-22 at Clemson University, June 20-22, in Clemson, S.C. The winner of the NCCC finals will receive a $5,000 scholarship and a trophy.

The other Rice team members are Jason Bui and Ricky Chen, undeclared freshmen; Ray Buttgen, freshman in CEE; Lori Ding, team co-captain and sophomore in CEE; and Thais Merlo, Thais Milhomem and Zoe Wu, seniors in CEE.

Since last August, the team has met at least once a week in the Ryon Engineering Lab. Their faculty adviser is Jamie Padgett, associate professor of CEE, and the team received assistance from Daniel Neumann, the CEE staff technician.

In 2010, after more than 10 years of non-participation, the Rice team placed second in the regional competition. The national winner last year was the team from the University of Nevada at Reno.

–Patrick Kurp, Engineering Communications