On November 12th, engineering students from a variety of different departments came together for one of the most breath taking, adrenaline rushing, high speed Enginuity events ever: the third ever Cardboard Boat Race! However, this time it was not just a mere race; it was a full out DEMOLITION DERBY!
This term, teams of two were allowed to make their own boats before the date of the competition; however, this was not mandatory. Each team was still provided with building time and materials before competitors began dueling out on the PAC pool. Many different styles of boats were created, ranging from the simple thick base and thin wall to a set of boxes taped together. The TOOL even made an appearance to initiate the building session.
The demolition derby rules were fairly straight forward. The eight teams competing were split into two heats, each consisting of four teams. The objective of the competition was to collect as many floating bobs as possible, which were constantly being thrown into the pool by sideline attendees. This gave teams two possible methods for winning a round. One: collect more bobs than any other team; or two: be the last team standing in the pool. The winners from each round then competed in a head to head round where the winner took all and was crowned the champion.
Both rounds consisted of fierce competitions with some teams even struggling to make it out of the starting gate. Round 1 started the competition off in a spectacular fashion. Two out of the four teams were demolished very quickly, sparking an intense head to head battle. The two teams managed to survive the entire round by collecting all the floating bobs in the pool, with one team managing to collect just 3 more than the other. However, in a surprising turn of events, the winning team could not qualify for the next round because their boat was too badly damaged to move on. This bumped the second place team to the champions round. The second round was not as long. It was more destruction-focused than anything else with 1 team left standing very quickly.
Surprisingly, both of the two qualifying teams were from the Nano 2014 class. One team posing as QNC researchers, while the other posing as Troy and Abed. Unfortunately for team Troy and Abed, their morning show boat collapsed in on itself very quickly in the champions round, meaning that the winners of the third Cardboard Boat Racing competition were the QNC researchers!
Look out for the next Cardboard Boat Racing competition in a PAC near you.
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