Typically a rock thrown in water sinks, but that's just what engineers at UCSD are trying to avoid.
The students said "bon-voyage" to a twenty-five-foot "concrete canoe" Thursday, that will hopefully take sail in Hawaii next month as part of a civil engineer’s competition.
Overall the canoe weighs around 300 pounds and is named the "Dow Jones," due to the economy.
The students have to load the 300-pound canoe and load it into a crate by hand. They will then load the crate/canoe into a truck destined for the port at Long Beach - weighing more than 600 pounds!
Engineers used tiny beads of glass and Styrofoam to make flotation possible.
"We have not put it into a container, water container or anything but I am very confident that it will float, by the basic buoyancy principles. Just like the titanic will float or some steel boat," structural engineering student Mark Galvan said.
UCSD is just one of 18 universities involved in the competition.
"Every year the American Society of Civil Engineers puts out this rule book that explains this project and its a big engineering challenge for students to figure out how to make concrete float and how to race it." Galvan said.
The competition will also hold events in concrete bowling and concrete Frisbee toss. Ouch.
