Concrete Canoe is a club dedicated to showcasing students’ innovation by putting their creativity and knowledge into practice by creating canoes out of concrete. They race the canoes as well as build them.
The club is divided into teams, each having a specialization. This allocates the work more efficiently, ensuring there is something for everyone.
Their main focus is to create a canoe that can be used to compete in the regional competition against other university teams.
“In addition to the regional Concrete Canoe competition, we host multiple workdays, to create test casts of the canoe, a final workday to build the final canoe and canoe practices on Saturday mornings,” said club treasurer, Sudhiksha Kumar.
Their involvement goes further through tabling events, team bonding and even an annual barbeque with the University of Kansas’ canoe club.
Symone Franks, a UMKC senior and environmental science major, is the president of Concrete Canoe and has been a part of the club for three years.
“Concrete Canoe has greatly impacted my experience at UMKC. Getting project management experience in my undergraduate career will be extremely helpful for me in the future,” Franks said.
The club is adaptive and constantly remodels the canoes to create new, more efficient designs.
They are competitive and focused on creating a hands-on learning experience, where students can get a unique education outside of the classroom.
Concrete Canoe has also facilitated an environment for students to meet peers and faculty.
“The most fruitful outcome from canoe has been the improvement I have seen in my science communication skills,”the club’s vice president Taylor Trudell.
UMKC’s Concrete Canoe club has won the regional competition twice before in 2022 and 2023. They maintain a similar goal for this year.
“Our goal is to do the best we can in all the sections of the regional competition so we can move on to the national competition,” Kumar said. “Especially since we have many seniors on the team, we’d like to go out with a win.”
Concrete Canoe is a great way to put practical skills into use. They center on team bonding and critical thinking. It serves as both a challenge and a way to exercise.
Any student on campus can get involved, there is no specific major or minor needed.
The team will attend the regional competition in April. Click here for more information.
