Concrete canoe? Science NonFiction!

You Thought Your Canoe Was Heavy!

My Rating: *****

If you remember the Algonquin trip, you might have noticed that I didn’t carry any of the canoes. I have trouble balancing a canoe on my shoulders. But my classmates said the canoes were light. Well, this canoe is definitely not light!

If you’ve fashioned anything out of concrete before, you will know that it will be heavy. Heavy things that are solid chunks will sink, like chunks of concrete. So how do you make concrete float? It’s difficult to make a functional boat out of concrete. I know because I actually did this. During the summer, I did this engineering camp at McMaster University. One of our projects we did was building a boat out of concrete. Mine didn’t work. But hey, that’s engineering. You break stuff until you figure out how to make it so it doesn’t break.

This canoe of concrete, however, is different from the concrete boats that we made at McMaster’s engineering camp. First of all, it’s bigger. Second of all, they’re racing them against each other. Third of all, it must be fast and easily maneuverable. Even for a team of second year university engineers, that’s a difficult task. But it all pays off in the end, even if you don’t win.

I liked this article because it was both outdoorsy and scientific at the same time. I bet portaging that concrete canoe must be an elephant (or at least a few bison)

article avaliable at: http://www.canoerootsmag.com/features/features-canoes/1366-you-thought-your-canoe-was-heavy.html