In 1876, a group of pioneers traveling the Beale Road, a primary route for settlers of the Southwest, stopped on the Fourth of July near the San Francisco Peaks to make camp.In celebration of the centennial of America, they stripped the limbs from a tall Ponderosa Pine tree and mounted the American flag at the top.Over the following years, travelers would stop at the “flag-staff” to pay tribute to their flag, thus cementing the cities name; Flagstaff, AZ.Flagstaff resides in the heart of the largest Ponderosa Forest on the continent.In the spirit of Flagstaff and the mighty Ponderosa tree, this year’s canoe was named the Ponderosa
Northern Arizona University, formally known as The Arizona State Teacher’s College, was founded in 1899 with only one program of study and a graduating class of 4 women. NAU now offers over 100 different programs of study with a student body of 25,224.The Engineering Department has 600 students enrolled in Civil and Environmental Engineering programs.
The NAU-ASCE student branch has competed in the Pacific Southwest Regional Conference since the 1980’s and attended the national competition repetitively between 1989 and 1993. Last year the concrete canoe team placed 9th in the regional conference. This year the team is striving for the chance to appear at the national level.
To complete this project in the allotted time and ensure the best possible product, this year’s team implemented a co-management system.All of the team captains worked equally on each section of the project to ensure the best possible solution would be obtained.This process was primarily focused towards the design, analysis, construction, paddling, and aesthetic methods.
This year’s team boasts its innovative feature of a sustainable process, to be unlike any other canoe project. With the project’s ever increasing sustainable parameters in mind the team focused on having a sustainable process, which included the sustainability requirements of the NCCC.The problem was the NCCC rules and regulations only focused on the sustainability of the concrete mix and nothing else.In today’s industry projects must focus on sustainability in every aspect, which was the mind set of this year’s team. The most significant innovative feature was the production of a wood-strip canoe, for use as a mold and a practice canoe. This feature was implemented to eliminate the large amount of waste from Styrofoam molds, which was a favorable method in previous years.By partaking in a recent effort to “go green” in Flagstaff we proudly present the Ponderosa