NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY CONCRETE CANOE

2020-2021

LESSONS LEARNED

Russell Collins

Marie Cook

Kyle Julle

Scott Murphy

Ryan Wassenberg

A LETTER FROM THE 2020-2021 CANOE CAPTAINS

Dear future NAU Canoe Team Captains,

As a team this year, we learned a lot about facing adversity and adjusting to changes.

Unfortunately, we did not get to have an in-person competition and did not build a full-scale canoe.

Although we were disappointed because 4 of 5 of our captains have attended 1 or more conferences

prior to this year and we were all looking forward to when we were the captains at conference, we

tried to make this year as productive as we could. We took detailed notes during all of the testing

we did get to complete, and we compiled this information for you in this lesson learned document

so that you all can learn from our mistakes and progress.

We would just like to note that although we didn’t build a canoe this year, we have worthwhile

information to pass on to you, and we highly recommend that you digest the information in this

document prior to diving into your project. As a team in our virtual conference, we placed 4

which is the highest scoring NAU Canoe team since Dreadnoughtus of 2015. Russell and Marie

have been involved with canoe since their freshman year, so they have attended 3 full canoe pour

days. Kyle, Scott, and Ryan have all attended at least 1 pour day so as a team, we do have

experience building concrete canoes.

For reference, the captains and their positions for this year are listed below. Each captain has left

their contact information as well so please feel free to reach out via email or phone with any

questions that you may have for us.

Russell Collins, Mix Design Captain

951-551-3765

rjc333@nau.edu

Marie Cook, Project Manager

619-540-7126

mrc458@nau.edu

Kyle Julle, Hull Design Captain

928-279-5185

kjj223@nau.edu

Scott Murphy, Structural Design Captain

661-644-2616

srm493@nau.edu

Ryan Wassenberg, Quality Assurance and Quality Control Captain

520-401-7047

rqw2@nau.edu

Table of Contents

1.0 WHERE TO START ................................................................................................................ 4

2.0 PROJECT MANAGEMENT ................................................................................................... 6

2.1 SCHEDULING ................................................................................................................................. 6

2.2 FUNDRAISING ................................................................................................................................ 6

2.3 COMMUNICATION/WEEKLY MEETINGS .............................................................................. 7

3.0 MIX DESIGN ........................................................................................................................... 8

3.1 GETTING STARTED WITH MIX DESIGN ................................................................................ 8

3.2 MATERIAL DONATIONS ............................................................................................................. 9

3.3 TAILORING YOUR MIX TO MEET THE END GOAL ............................................................ 9

3.4 MIXING CONCRETE ................................................................................................................... 10

3.5 TESTING ........................................................................................................................................ 10

4.0 HULL DESIGN...................................................................................................................... 11

4.1 HULL DESIGN RESEARCH ....................................................................................................... 11

4.2 HULL DESIGN............................................................................................................................... 11

4.2 Construction Drawings .................................................................................................................. 12

5.0 STRUCTURAL DESIGN ...................................................................................................... 12

5.1 REINFORCEMENT ...................................................................................................................... 12

5.2 CALCULATIONS .......................................................................................................................... 12

6.0 CONSTRUCTION ................................................................................................................. 13

6.1 MOLD .............................................................................................................................................. 13

6.2 Construction Table ......................................................................................................................... 13

6.3 Hand Placement .............................................................................................................................. 14

7.0 CONFERENCE ..................................................................................................................... 14

7.1 Transport/Travel ............................................................................................................................ 14

7.2 The Races......................................................................................................................................... 14

1.0 WHERE TO START

This project can seem extremely overwhelming right from the beginning because of the large

amounts of testing and hours that must be contributed to the project. From the very beginning, all

the captains need to understand that this project will require lots of hours and cooperation with all

of the captains. Assume you are already behind schedule.

LAB ACCESS: You cannot start working at the farm until you have proper lab access completed

so get started on that ASAP. Our recommendation is getting that safety binder in for review within

the first week of classes.

ASSIGNING ROLES: This project works the most smoothly if everyone knows their

responsibilities from the very beginning. The table below lists the roles we assigned this year along

with their responsibilities. Feel free to adjust this to fit your team’s needs but make sure that

everyone’s roles are clearly spelled out.

Roles Responsibilities

Project Manager (PM)

 Organize meetings

 Create and maintain the schedule

 Create and maintain the website

 Check in with all other captains very often (sometimes daily) and

provide assistance where necessary

 Ensure the team is meeting both capstone deliverable deadlines and

conference deadlines.

Quality Assurance/Quality

Control (QA/QC)

 Work closely with the project manager for the meetings, schedule, and

website

 Know the competition rules better than anyone on the team – you are

responsible for ensuring the final design meets the requirements set by

 The final draft of assignments usually went through the QA/QC captain

before being submitted

Mix Design

 Research necessary components of the mix design (using the internet,

books, past reports, advisors)

 Teach the basic components of mix to the rest of the teams so that

nobody is clueless

 Keep very organized with mix tables and make sure your calculations

are right. You will refer back to these very often when creating your

design

 Do a lot of testing and make a lot of mixes.

Hull Design

 Learn whatever software you wish to use to make the hull design (we

used SolidWorks for the initial design and then MaxSurf to run

hydrodynamic analysis of the design)

o If you have an ME friend, they will be extremely useful for

learning SolidWorks!

 Be sure to understand the requirements set in the rules, there is often a

maximum length or other restrictions to the design

 Complete necessary research to understand components of hull design

(canoeing.com, past reports, YouTube, etc.)

 Create the construction drawings for the final design report

Structural Design

 Aid the team in deciding what mesh to use. See the mesh results section

for our recommendations.

 Complete research for the structural calculations to be done for the

competition

o Be sure to follow the rules closely. Sometimes they will give

you exact loading cases and calculations to be completed, other

times you have more flexibility. Just be familiar with your rules.

 Put together graphics for the calculations for the final design report.

Excel and Bluebeam can be very useful for this.

COMMUNICATION IS THE KEY TO BEING SUCCESFUL ON THIS PROJECT.

 We recommend that all 5 captains have the time to be a canoe captain – without a ton of

extracurriculars (especially ASCE president – we do not recommend that ASCE president

be a canoe captain.

 You can never have too much communication between members. We recommend creating

a group chat very early on because communicating through text can often be easier than

email. We often texted daily just to check in a ensure we were making the necessary

progress.

 Everyone will have their own responsibilities, and everyone needs to respect other people’s

requests. If the PM is pushing everyone on a deadline, they are not power hungry they are

just trying to ensure the work get completed on time. Same with any other captain that

needs your help.

 Make sure that everyone feels comfortable having open conversations about problems or

disagreements – don’t take it personally, put the needs of the project first (easier said than

done, we know)

2.0 PROJECT MANAGEMENT

2.1 SCHEDULING

Jump on the schedule EARLY.

You will probably use Microsoft Project to make the schedule, if you aren’t familiar with it, start

with some basic tutorials on YouTube.

Refer to past year’s schedules to know what should be included within your schedule.

Give yourself extra time built into the schedule. We had some un-avoidable setbacks such as

team members going into quarantine for COVID or weather restricting our access to the farm.

We recognized that these may be issues going into the project and we included extra time in our

schedule, so it did not greatly affect our deadlines.

If you find that you are starting some items earlier than you have planned in the schedule,

START THEM EARLY. Trust us, if it ever feels like you have a lot of time, you’re wrong. You

do not want to follow the 476/486C schedule – this will lead to failure for the conference. The

class ends in April/May but the competition is in March and often, important deadlines are in

FEBRUARY!!

2.2 FUNDRAISING

This project is funded by YOU. Start fundraising early. We set a goal for ourselves early on to

raise $8,000. Because we didn’t have an in-person conference, we did end up decreasing this and

we ended up with about $6,000 for the project.

PRIVATE DONATIONS

 We put together a proposal package that we were able to send out to companies of interest

(local Flagstaff companies, companies that captains have interned for, companies owned by

family or friends)

 We have included this package in this document so you can use it for reference.

JACKSFUNDER

 This was useful in getting the word out to alumni and family and it makes it easy for people

to donate rather than sending a check

 There were some issues we had with this: i

o t takes a lot of work to get this going (we recommend either the PM or QA/QC takes

the lead and is the main communication between the JacksFunder people)

o NAU does take a portion of your funds

o It is often difficult to spend the money in this – takes a lot of communication with the

Dean’s office and every purchase needs a public statement for why it is being

purchase

WHO TO REACH OUT TO:

 Family/friends

 Local Flagstaff Companies

 Construction Companies and Engineering Firms that you may know personally

 Alumni!!

Nobody will donate if you don’t ask!!

2.3 COMMUNICATION/WEEKLY MEETINGS

There is no such thing as too much communication.

Documentation is key. Keep detailed meeting minutes for EVERY MEETING – even when it

seems unnecessary. There is a good chance that you will end up looking back because you

simply cannot remember everything. This will be especially useful when making presentations

for class and for the conference.

Keep open communication with your GI, Client, and TA. These are all extremely helpful

resources. They all have had lots of canoe experience and are like a canoe encyclopedia. They

will not always just give out answers for free, but this is because this is a self-learning project.

Keeping organized between capstone requirements and conference requirements can often get

confusing. Our recommendation is keeping a clear checklist of items to be completed for each.

These should be discussed at each weekly meeting and should be accurately reflected in the

schedule. Ultimately, the goal of this capstone is to perform well in the conference so keep that

in mind. But you can’t graduate if you don’t meet the needs of capstone, so they are both

important.

TAKE LOTS OF PHOTOS. You want pictures of EVERYTHING. You will thank yourself

when it comes to putting together presentations and your website. Also, in these pictures make

sure everyone is wearing proper PPE. This includes gloves, glasses, and masks (if still

necessary for COVID). You don’t want to include a photo in a presentation or report that is

exposing your lack of safety.

HEADSHOTS: We recommend taking nice headshots of each team member early on in the

project so these can be used for deliverables throughout the duration of the project. We did this

and they turned out great and looked professional in our report and on our website. We took

them at the farm, and everyone had a blue polo on – this made it really easy because we did this

the same day we met at the farm to take inventory. We know that this seems extra, but it is worth

it.

3.0 MIX DESIGN

3.1 GETTING STARTED WITH MIX DESIGN

It may seem like you don’t know where to begin with mixing concrete but here are some steps to

starting that:

1. First, take inventory of materials you have available to you at the farm. We have stocked

the farm with important mix materials such as cement, aggregates, and admixtures. Please

use these in your testing. Also, if there is a material at the farm that is not labeled, and you

have no information on it, it is no good to you.

2. Start with past team’s mix tables. Russell is a great resource for mix design tables.

3. Also look at other school’s past mix tables. The rules are released by C4 sometime in

September – there is usually a link in there that takes you to all of last year’s reports. THIS

IS EXTREMELY USEFUL.

4. You will make a lot of mixes during your time on canoe so go ahead and start mixing that

concrete as soon as you have lab access.

5. Watch Tyler Lay’s YouTube videos

6. Get the book Design and Control of Concrete Mixtures from b-ok.org

Understand the basic components of concrete and what use each of them provides.

 Cement, cementitious materials, fly ash, aggregates, admixtures, dyes

Most of the information is self-taught but past mix design captains are a great resource. Russell is

more than willing to help you all out.

You will most likely be using the absolute volume method for your mix design. This is where you

design your mix by the number of pounds of material and water it takes to make 1 cubic yard of

concrete. This is why your specific gravity is your most important lab-tested value because you

need to make that conversion of a material’s mass (lbs) to volume. Otherwise, your calculations

will be wrong.

Aside from looking at other team’s mixes, you can start with these mix proportions of any supplies

you have at the farm. They’re a good reference, but you’ll probably end up tweaking your mix by

a little or in some cases a lot.

Starting Proportions

ater

ent

ratio

0.37

(don’t go below 0.35)

Cement (

Portland

, probably)

450

lbs

Cementitious Replacement, 25% of cement (fly ash, silica fume,

nat pozz, etc.)

150 lbs

Aggregate 1,

25%

aggregates (C330 compliant for strength,

such as Utelite). Use an even gradation

150 lbs

Lightweight aggregate (microsphere (poraver),

perlite, EPS

foam, etc.)

add until you reach just under 27 ft3

for total mix

lbs

Water Reducer Admixture 6 (or add until desired workability) fl oz./cwt

Water ( [%absorption of aggregate * weight of aggregate] +

[cement weight * w/cm ratio] )

? lbs

3.2 MATERIAL DONATIONS

Most suppliers are willing to donate materials for free. They may ask you to pay for any shipping,

so if that’s the case make sure you order more than you need. They also are experts in their products

and can really help you avoid extensive testing and tell you how exactly to use their product and

how much of it to use. I highly suggest getting their opinions and asking them for help. Below

you’ll find a helpful list to start, but also don’t be afraid of contacting new companies for material

that hasn’t been used before. Also, most companies don’t donate things such as microspheres, they

charge you for those, so be aware of that.

Supplier Material Contact

SRMG cement Scott P. SPalmer@srmaterials.com

CEMEX cement Michael S. Michaeld.scharfencamp@cemex.com

AeroAgg UL-FGA Theresa L. tloux@aeroaggregates.com

WestTech testing Daniel V.G. d.vangundy@wt-us.com

BASF admixtures Derek W. Derek.wittneben@basf.com

West. Stucco

sealants/special

cements

Matt B. mboker@westernblended.com

N. American

Composites

Dyes, fibers,

adhesives,

poraver

David T. DTierney@nacomposites.com

3.3 TAILORING YOUR MIX TO MEET THE END GOAL

You mix design should be specific to the goals of your team. The mix design captain should

work closely with the hull design captain and the structural design captain while developing mix

options.

For example, one of our goals this year was to create a mix that was simple in terms of number

of components. We also wanted to find locally sourced materials. For the competition, the judges

are looking for the best design and ask themselves “what if we were to mass produce this

canoe”? We decided to look for locally sourced materials because this decreases the overall

transportation necessary and supports local economy. Russell spent hours researching locally

sourced materials and we consider this a success for our team this year.

You will want to make similar goals that you all think is helpful and attainable for your team.

3.4 MIXING CONCRETE

Mix design takes a lot of hours of research and even more time spent at the farm actually making

the cylinders. The mix design captain should never be at the farm mixing concrete alone. More

often than not, the entire team would meet the farm for mix design days. During the first

semester, we had mix design days almost every weekend once we were cleared for lab work.

Even though 5 people is excessive for mixing concrete – there is plenty to be done. More often

than not, the project manager was completing deliverables for the team and the mix design days

were mostly an additional meeting for team each week.

Be sure to follow the rules set by C4 for mix design. Each year, they change something about the

mix design so even though you can start by creating a past year’s mix – you will eventually need

to tailor it to fit your rules. It is okay if you start with a mix that is illegal for your year, you will

make a lot of mixes so you will be able to make it legal.

You should try to finalize your mix design by the end of the first semester so that you can make

sure you have enough materials at the farm well before pour day – YOU DO NOT WANT TO

RUN OUT OF CONCRETE ON POUR DAY.

Make sure you don’t leave the farm until everything is CLEAN. Canoe is not the only team that

uses the farm so be respectful plus you don’t want concrete caked onto your tools for the next

time you need to use them.

If you think that you are doing a lot of mixes, you aren’t. Keep going. Strive for 20+ mixes.

Some schools conduct way over 50 mixes.

3.5 TESTING

TAKE LOTS OF PHOTOS of everything – you WILL use these in presentations/reports.

Become familiar with the machines used to break the cylinder – past canoe captains are a useful

resource as well as professors. You can also drop your cylinders off at Western-Tech, they’re

more than willing to help and will give you accurate strength values.

Tests you want to perform for each mix:

 Slump

 Unit weight

 7-day & 28-day Compression Strength

 7-day & 28-day Tensile Strength (should be 10-20% comp strength)

 Air content ([calculated density – cast density]/calculated density)

Keep detailed records of the testing results for each mix so you can talk about this in your

reports/presentations. Learn to read ASTM documents to follow the proper procedures.

After casting your cylinder, dump it in a bucket of water such that it’s fully submerged (make

sure lid is on tight). Leave it in there for no more than 48hrs, strip the mold and then place it in a

curing chamber or humid environment until your break.

Make sure your specific gravities are accurate and your absorption percentages are accurate. If

they are not, your calculations will be off which would make it hard to predict anything. Most

tech sheets have the SG on them, but probably not the absorption test. Western tech can also

perform both these tests for you to ensure you get accurate results. Also, testing ultra-lightweight

aggregates for SG is difficult and you will probably mess it up, absorption you should be able to

do yourself.

Always make sure to mix in all components – INCLUDING FIBERS (these are really easy to

forget). Don’t overwork your mix, though. Once everything is mixed together, you need to stop

mixing.

4.0 HULL DESIGN

4.1 HULL DESIGN RESEARCH

Just like the rest of the project, past year’s final designs are extremely helpful. Each team will

upload there SolidWorks design and construction drawings to the website. Open this up and see

how they constructed their canoe in SolidWorks, AutoCAD, and MAXSurf. This was extremely

helpful in the research on how to design a canoe. We also found that canoeing.com is a good

resource for learning the different parts of the canoe and different possible shapes. They have a

page on canoeing.com that is specifically for designing a canoe. As a team this past year we took

out the asymmetrical and symmetrical canoes out to Lake Marry to research the different design

types and the paddleability of each design. We highly suggest you do this because it was an eye

opener for us. Not only was this a good team bonding time but we were able to count this

towards hours also. The main goal here is to understand different canoe terms and how different

designs effect the canoe performance in the water.

PRO TIP: You don’t row a canoe, you paddle it.

PRO TIP: Know what freeboard is before you even start the project because you will get roasted

by Mark if you don’t.

4.2 HULL DESIGN

The best program to use to design your canoe would be SolidWorks, the hull design captain will

need to learn the program. This program gives you the ability of designing the canoe and seeing

your design come together. At this part in the process, you should have the dimensions of your

canoe and shape of the cross section. You can also create your mold for your canoe using

SolidWorks. If you have an ME friend – use them to learn the program. This will be the most

helpful way of learning SolidWorks. Also, YouTube has some great videos for learning on the

fly. The design of a hull in SolidWorks is not rocket science but to someone who has never used

the program before, it can seem extremely foreign. SolidWorks works great for modeling the

canoe and seeing it but to analyze the canoe it will need to be exported into MAXSurf or the

canoe design needs to be designed in this program. Be careful when exporting SolidWorks into

MAXSurf because a lot more information is carried over than what is needed.

MAXSurf is a program that analyzes the canoe design and modifications can be made in this

program to get a better design. MAXSurf has a whole range of capabilities and the best way for

learning about this capability is to YouTube and send your file to Bentley and they will help you

understand what is going on. This year we sent our MAXSurf file to Bentley and got a response.

We have uploaded this file to the shared drive. In the video the guy talks about just designing the

canoe in MAXSurf first and then going to SolidWorks. This might be the move for you. The

video is very helpful and informational about MAXSurf. This guy also talks about creating a

mold in this program. This also might be the move depending on your SolidWorks ability. The

program is a lot at first but the more you learn about the program the more you will be able to

unlock and make the hull design great.

4.2 Construction Drawings

The best program to use would be AutoCAD. Export your SolidWorks or MAXSurf file into

AutoCAD. Scale the canoe and trace the design. Make sure that you have all the information

required for competition. This step takes some time and multiple iterations might be needed here.

Also, use the Geotech border block to save some time. Always be open to suggestions.

5.0 STRUCTURAL DESIGN

5.1 REINFORCEMENT

For multiple years now, NAU canoe teams have been using basalt mesh reinforcement. This

reinforcement is very strong and there is a lot available from past teams at the farm.

Unfortunately, this mesh is extremely difficult to work with because it is so rigid. Our team

really did not want to have to use this mesh, so we tried a fiberglass mesh (there is also a huge

roll of this at the farm). Although the fiberglass mesh provides less resistance when placing it, it

just does not provide the same strength as the basalt mesh. We did end up going with basalt mesh

for our final design because it was readily available, and we didn’t have time to buy and test

more meshes but we recommend looking at past canoe reports from other high-performing

schools and see what they use as their primary reinforcement.

5.2 CALCULATIONS

The required calculations should be specified in the rules for your year, and they also might give

you the required loadings. If they don’t give you the required loadings, it will be up to you to

decide what makes sense given your paddlers and equipment. Modeling a canoe as a beam can

seem extremely foreign at first but eventually you will start to understand how it all works.

Refer to past papers from both NAU and other schools to get ideas for the best way to represent

the canoe structurally.

Definitely reach out to a structural professor so that they can help you with the calculations

(someone like Dr. Hewes or Dr. Tuchscherer are great resources)

 Do not approach these professors like they have a duty to help you, if they don’t want to

or don’t have time then you have to accept that (more often than not, they will be more

than willing to help out)

 Do not expect these professors to spoon-feed the information to you – they are not canoe

experts either

 Instead, think of these professors as a colleague who has more structural design

experience and they are nice enough to take time to help you out with your work

Although the structural calculations aren’t the most important part of the overall design, putting

in the time and making them correct and neat can really make an impression on the judges.

PRO TIP: Try not to cut a bunch of corners on these calculations. The more assumptions you

make and the more inaccurate calculations you do, only lead to difficulty answering questions

both at the conference and during capstone presentations.

6.0 CONSTRUCTION

6.1 MOLD

The easiest mold to get is a foam mold (1.5 density). There’s a company in Palm Springs, CA

that will cut your mold for you, it will cost anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000 so make sure you

keep in mind that your mold will probably be the most expensive part of the project. Most of this

cost is just buying the foam, I think the company doesn’t charge for their service itself.

You can also make your own mold using foam or wood but expect to give up your winter break

if you would rather go down this road.

There are three types of molds: a female mold, male mold, and injection mold. I recommend

using a female mold if you are hand placing your concrete. A male mold also works for hand

placement. An injection mold is a whole new engineering problem and I just don’t recommend

attempting it.

6.2 Construction Table

You will need a table to put your mold on. Make sure this table is flat (true and flush), and that it

is the SIZE OF YOUR MOLD NOT YOUR CANOE. Make sure you account for the height of

the mold when designing your table. I would plan on the table being shorter than you would

think.

6.3 Hand Placement

Mix up about 0.5ft

or more of concrete for each batch. This is around the amount of concrete

your team can handle at a time. However, don’t be the bottleneck in the process so alays be

mixing a new batch. It’s always better to mix more than you need, too. Expect your canoe to be

around 2-3 ft

. USE TOOLS. A trowel is the best if you are familiar with them and have used

them before, but if you’re not comfortable with a trowel consider using a roller, like the ones you

make bread with but a bit smaller. The trick to constructing a canoe is using the right tools. Find

which tool you perform best with and stick with it. I normally have two tools in my hands, never

ever try to finish concrete with your hands even if it’s tempting.

7.0 CONFERENCE

The key to conference is to have fun and enjoy it. Always keep snacks on you, even on the drive,

as it can be long and boring sometimes. Helps with the headaches you may experience after the

first night too.

Make sure you are ready for the presentation. All presenters should wear a suite and tie or the

equivalent, try to match with your theme and each other. The judges like a good, themed,

presentation; also, remember you’re trying to sell yourself and your canoe.

7.1 Transport/Travel

Transporting your canoe is tricky and can ruin it very easily. In fact, this is where your canoe

will experience its largest forces (think: 200lb canoe going down freeway at 55mph, sudden stop

because traffic, 200lb pounds of inertia still wanting to go 55mph).”. In the past, teams have used

a “coffin,” which is a box made of plywood large enough for your canoe to fit in, with cross-

sectional bracers (also plywood) in the shape of your hull every 1 foot. Also, use things like

foam or cut-up pool noodles to protect your canoe from abrasion. You can also use these on the

sides of your canoe during the races.

Other teams have also used a rolling cart. This can work if you can tie your canoe down very

well without breaking it. The cart also needs to be beefy. Carts have broken in the past during

transport (again, the inertia thing).

7.2 The Races

Honestly, don’t expect much. You’re pretty much trying to paddle a rock, and some of the other

teams probably have a lot more hours of practice than you do. Do your best and have fun with it,

at the very least just make sure you and/or your paddlers make it around the buoys. Otherwise,

grab a drink and enjoy your day at the water. Don’t claim you “forgot” Fridays are Hawaiian

shirt Fridays. That just doesn’t slide.