Hope Floats

In 2022, a team of UB engineering students race acriss Lake LaSalle in a canoe made entirely of concrete.

In 2022, a team of UB engineering students race acriss Lake LaSalle in a canoe made entirely of concrete.

Every year, a team of UB engineering students does what appears impossible: races across a lake in a canoe made entirely of concrete. As members of UB’s American Society of Civil Engineers, a team of students takes part in the annual competition, going toe-to-toe against schools across the region. In April 2023, they won the regional competition for the first time in club history and later placed fifth at national level.  

The team of engineering students spent months making material and fabrication enhancements to a previously successful 2022 canoe design. They also practiced their paddling skills by taking the canoe out onto Lake LaSalle every few days to improve their sprint and slalom times. 

The UB team’s travel and participation in the Concrete Canoe Competition, as well as another coveted program, the ASCE’s Student Steel Bridge Competition, are made possible through donor gifts like those made by Larry Mathews, BS ’69, who also serves as a mentor to student builders.

More UB Moments

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    Olli, a self-driving electric shuttle, demonstrated its capabilities at the Fourth Annual Symposium on Transportation Informatics, a two-day conference on UB’s North Campus that brought together nationwide leaders in next-generation transportation technologies in 2018. 
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    The University at Buffalo Libraries celebrated Bloomsday in June 2021 by unveiling a mural of renowned Irish author and poet James Joyce. 
  • Hope Floats
    1/14/25
    Every year, a team of UB engineering students does what appears impossible: races across a lake in a canoe made entirely of concrete. As members of UB’s American Society of Civil Engineers, a team of students takes part in the annual competition, going toe-to-toe against schools across the region. In April 2023, they won the regional competition for the first time in club history and later placed fifth at national level.  
  • The Art of Diversity
    1/14/25
    A floor-to-ceiling mural by Buffalo artist Julia Bottoms in the Jacobs School’s second floor atrium has a bigger purpose: to celebrate the diversity of the school and to demonstrate its role as a partner in the community. The figures in the mural are depictions of actual students and faculty. 
  • True Blue
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    Alumni, donors, family and friends converged on campus for a warm, sunny weekend in October to reconnect, to cheer for their UB Bulls and to celebrate the culmination of the historic Boldly Buffalo campaign.