SRM University has won India’s first National Concrete Canoe competition

SRM University has won India’s first National Concrete Canoe competition in association with the Indian Concrete Institute held at IIT Madras. IIT Madras conceptualized the competition in resemblance with the ASCE Concrete Canoe competition in USA.
The competition was a unique opportunity for the students of Civil, Architecture and Ocean Engineering. Adithya Eswaran and Vishruth Krishnan, along with 12 other students of department of Civil Engineering conceived the idea under the guidance of Assistant Professor, Mr. S. Pradeep.
The team systematically worked for the development of canoe design. The first challenge was to come up with the proper concrete mix. This was done by the mix design team (Adithya Eswaran, Vishruth Krishnan, Shriya Kumari, Jinesh R Sanghvi, Sayana Sherif, Siddhart Satish & Namrata Solanki). The structural design team (Sai Sabarish M, Abrar Bashir Malla, Muhammad Essa Abu Bakar) took charge of the stability analysis. Around 150 structural concepts were revised for this. Peerzada Abdul Basit, student of M.Tech, Structural Engineering also helped the team for the race. Over 20 mix designs were experimented and tested to get the final concrete mix. The canoe was cast on July 12, 2015 in six hours.

Total 35 teams from six states had registered for the competition. 19 canoes were descended upon the third round in IIT Madras including IIT Bombay, NIT Trichy, VIT Vellore, SRM Easwari Engineering College and SRM University, Kattankulathur. SRM University rower team, Abrar Bashir Malla and Muhammad Essa Abu Bakar set a record of 52 seconds (Boy-Boy) to complete 50m in Concrete Canoe Racing. 10 teams were qualified for the final race including RMK College of Engineering (Two teams), Amrita College of Engineering (two teams) Coimbatore, Prathyusha College of Engineering, Poornima Group of Institutions ,Jaipur, NIRMA University, Ahmadabad, SRM Easwari College of Engineering, SRM University Kattankulathur, and IIT Bombay.
SRM University team had the fastest lap in 32 seconds (Boy-Boy). In the boy-girl race SRM had another record of 42 seconds by rowers Muhammad Essa Abu Bakar & Sayana Sherif.
The girl-girl race of the SRM University team at the competition finished with 60 seconds by the rowers; Shriya Kumari & Sayana Sherif.
The competition allotted 30% of the points to canoe racing and 70% was given to technical aspects such as report submissions, poster presentation, adequate design, research and aesthetic beauty of the canoe. Based on the overall points SRM University stood ahead of the other institutions.