On November 5th, engineering students from different programs and years put their engineering ingenuity and planning skills to the test, in one of the less commonly known events on campus – the second ever Cardboard BOAT Racing.
The event started in the early evening in POETS, where teams of up to six people were given a pile of cardboard picked up from around campus, and a 50m role of duct-tape, and had to build a boat that would float in the PAC pool and race across it. Each team had roughly 5 hours to build their boat, including a dinner break part way through.
There were a total of fourteen teams at the event, including one from executives, one from the outgoing FOC, one from the Math faculty, and many other class teams. Many teams even came up with costumes and themes for their boats for spirit points.
As a side event to the building of the boats, the EngSoc executives put THE CUP up, so McMaster and UofT came down to see the start of the event. They had their own event, which I am sure is being discussed by exec. To announce the winner of the event, the TOOL made an appearance so that McMaster could see it before they took the Cup back to Hamilton.
Once the building phase of the competition was done, there was a judging based on appearance and how each team used their materials, and then everyone went to the PAC. Five heats were run, where each team had to do one lap in the shallow end of the pool. Hilarity ensued when many teams realized that as soon as their boat hit the water, it would begin sinking.
In third place was the team of Math students, who showed you don’t have to be in engineering to make an impressive boat. Second place, and one of only two teams to make it from one end of the pool to the other was the 2016 Systems class. And the winners of the second ever Cardboard BOAT Racing competition was Possum Lodge, who based their costumes and their boat on the Red Green Show.
Look out for next term’s Cardboard Boat Racing competition.
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