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A Lafayette team took first place for its design paper and earned an honorable mention in the 2003 Pennsylvania-Delaware Region of the National Concrete Canoe Competition last weekend at Lake Galena near Doylestown, Pa.
A group of 13 civil engineering majors worked all year to build and float a canoe made of concrete for the event, sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers and Master Builders Inc.
“The way that the students built the canoe and competed in all aspects of the event was impressive,” says David Brandes, who served as team adviser along with fellow assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering Art Kney. “They were a very enthusiastic group and did a great job of representing Lafayette. We had a young team and they’re excited to do it again next year.”
Marquis Scholar James Mangarillo ’03 of Hampton Bays, N.Y., and Jeremy Lucas ’03 of Peckville, Pa., served as captains of the team. The satisfaction of working with others and seeing the completed product made the many hours spent on it worthwhile, Lucas notes.
“It takes a lot of work and a lot of effort to get that far,” says Lucas, who will pursue a master’s in civil engineering with emphasis on structural engineering at Virginia Tech this fall. “It’s neat to see if you can do it, and it’s gratifying to know that you were a part of making that happen. You also get closer to students from other classes that you wouldn’t see otherwise.”
At the competition, one of Mangarillo’s final tasks was to hoist paddle-wielding teammates into the 20.5-foot-long craft.
“I was the human crane,” he says, explaining that lifting paddlers into the canoe instead of allowing them to enter on their own reduced the risk of cracking.
Mangarillo, who began work on the project almost as soon as he arrived on campus in the fall, says he was immediately faced with some challenges that last year’s team didn’t encounter. The contest rules changed dramatically, eliminating display booths and the practice of painting and naming the canoes. The design specifications also changed to prohibit teams that participated in past years from using the same concrete mixture.
Still, team member Fernando Luna ’04 (Managua, Nicaragua) was able to come up with a design that combined the best traits of the canoes from the past two years. Team members were able to combine cement, fly ash, and water with Laticrete, a latex additive; Advar, a plasticizer that increases strength and helps keep the water-cement ratio low; and microspheres, tiny glass bubbles filled with air. Mangarillo was in charge of the mixture for the boat, which was cast on Feb. 22, while Lucas led mold construction.
By mid-March, the team was in the final stages of sanding and patching, and Mangarillo and Lucas were hard at work preparing the design paper and oral report that comprise more than half of the points in the competition.
For Mangarillo, the effort was challenging — and, despite long hours, fun. His work was invaluable, according to Brandes.
“He was one of our go-to guys,” he says. “In addition to being a bright student, he has a tremendous work ethic. He’s the kind of guy without whom this wouldn’t have happened. He and Jeremy really carried the load of the project. They put in week after week of hard work and sweat.”
Mangarillo also is working on a senior honors thesis in hydrology and will present the results of his research in June at the 2003 World Water and Environmental Congress in Philadelphia (see related story). Last summer, he worked on two EXCEL research projects involving storm pollution (see related story). Mangarillo took a Lafayette course in Turkey during the January interim session.
“I was always taught that the more things you know, the better off you are,” he says, pointing out that his Lafayette experience has made it possible for him to explore his varied interests and given him a firm grounding in engineering that will help his pursuit of graduate study in hydrology at University of Massachusetts.
“The professors here are great,” he says. “When you talk to them, it’s as though you’re talking to a peer, not a superior. That has made it easier for me to learn the material and develop a trust in them.”
Lucas notes that his Lafayette experience prepared him well for interviews by professors from Virginia Tech and other graduate schools.
“I felt confident in grasping what they were discussing about their research,” he says. “I also understood that there’s a lot out there I don’t know. But through research, classes, and independent study opportunities, I feel that I have a good understanding of what’s involved with graduate research.”
The “great interest” that professors take in students and their projects is a major strength of Lafayette’s civil and environmental engineering department, he says.
“A lot of professors have asked Jim and I questions about how the canoe and other things are going,” he says. “It’s really good to have that support. They give a lot of encouragement for work outside the classroom. You get to know certain professors on a personal level; they’re almost like colleagues in certain respects when doing research. They don’t look down at you or treat you as somebody less important, but you still have sense of them as being leaders and professors.”
Lucas used computer monitors in an EXCEL Scholars project with Brandes to model the Bushkill Creek watershed and determine water quality and runoff flow. The project was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (see related story). He also followed up as a volunteer to check the data.
He also conducted an independent study under the guidance of Steve Kurtz, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, on the building codes and past research associated with concrete anchors, which connect columns for concrete footings and are used in structures such as power plants and large industrial buildings. The work contributed to a larger project by Kurtz to develop a better method to test the load capacity of the anchors.
“There’s a call in industry for refined codes in designing these things and understanding how they work,” says Lucas.
Last summer, he served an internship in the Scranton, Pa., branch of Greenman-Pedersen Inc., an engineering firm that provides professional design, architecture, planning, and construction management services to the public and private sectors throughout the eastern United States. He drafted plans and details for structural engineering projects such as schools and medical research buildings.
The prior two summers, he interned with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (see related story).
Lucas served as president of the student chapter of American Society of Civil Engineers and is a worship leader in Lafayette Christian Fellowship. He also has been a member of The Chorduroys, Lafayette’s male student a cappella group, and tutored local students in the America Reads program through the Landis Community Outreach Center.
Other civil and environmental engineering majors who participated on the concrete canoe team are seniors Sandy Furnbach (Matawan, N.J.), fundraising chair, Nathan Tregger (Niantic, N.J.), and Katrina Gibbons (Berlin, Md.); juniors Nate Tyson (Easton, Pa.) and Theresa Kearney (Pearl River, N.Y.); and first-year students Bradley Knote (Garden City, N.Y.), Catherine Herchenroder (Breezy Point, N.Y.), Rich Connors (Manchester, Conn.), Shari Leventhal (Great Neck, N.Y.), Jenna Cellini (New City, N.Y.), and Anneliza Carmalt (Milan, Pa.).
Students pursuing second degrees are Furnbach, art; Tregger, math; Tyson, geology; and Luna, International Studies.