50 years afloat: How the KU Concrete Canoe program turned cement into legacy

LAWRENCE – This year marks a milestone for the University of Kansas Concrete Canoe team. Established in the spring of 1975, Concrete Canoe is celebrating its 50^th year. What began as a student-led project in the mid-1970s has now grown into a tradition that has shaped generations of Jayhawk engineers, built lifelong friendships and made a splash in the world of civil engineering.

From learning to float …

The KU Concrete Canoe Program was launched with a simple yet bold idea: What if concrete could float? In the hands of creative KU engineering students, that question became a challenge. Inspired by the first collegiate races in 1970, leading to a regional competition that began at Kansas State University the previous year, David Darwin, now a distinguished professor, took the lead in developing KU’s own team.

“When I got to KU in the fall of 1974, I thought that we ought to have a concrete canoe team,” said Darwin. “We started racing that spring up in Manhattan with our canoe, KAN-U.”

KAN-U, a play on both the word “canoe” and the KANU radio station, was made of three-quarter-inch steel conduit, half-inch hardware cloth (wire) and concrete that was lighter than water. In spite of the lightweight concrete, the boat weighed over 300 pounds. The team didn’t win that year, but the knowledge it took home helped the next Concrete Canoe team bring members closer to a trophy.

An addition to the student races were the faculty races, which have now been discontinued. According to Darwin, these races were “a big deal.”

“We’d always have one faculty team,” he said. “Over the next 10 years, that would usually be Stan Rolfe and me.”

That first year, Darwin and Rolfe came in third place. The next, they came in second. Finally, in 1977, Darwin and Rolfe took home first place in the faculty canoe race, and they didn’t lose for at least 10 years after that.

“After Stan and I won the faculty race in 1977, the students kicked in and won the whole thing for years,” he said.

Since the beginning of the program, the rules and regulations of the competition have changed and shifted. In the beginning, teams used whatever resources they were able to get their hands on to create the best possible canoe, including actual racing canoes.

“There was a canoe shop on Michigan Street, and the owner was happy to talk to us about canoes,” Darwin said. “He lent us a racing canoe and we put it in the flume and measured the whole canoe and designed ours off of that.”

Now, there are complex rules to follow in creating a concrete canoe, and 3D-printing a canoe based on a racing canoe won’t cut it. KU wasn’t the only team to use a wide range of strategies to make the best canoe it could, however.

“At the national level, we had some heavy competition with the mechanical engineers at the University of Alabama in Huntsville,” Darwin said. “That’s one of the NASA sites, so they’d use all sorts of space-age materials in their canoe. In those days, you could paint a canoe with epoxy or anything else you wanted to use, so the very best canoes didn’t look like they were concrete.”

Some teams used fiber-reinforced or thermal-setting polymers that would create a really strong boat. Now, in 2025, the canoes are purely cementitious materials.

“This year’s canoe is a work of art,” Darwin said. “There’s not a bit of epoxy in the thing at all. If they don’t win the best-looking canoe out there, I don’t know what will.”

This year’s canoe took home second place overall at the 2025 Mid-America Student Symposium, as well as first place in project proposal and second place in technical presentation.

“I think the Concrete Canoe program is a real fixture in civil engineering departments,” Darwin said. “I think it’s going to have a good, long life.”

… To sailing the seas

As KU Concrete Canoe celebrates 50 years of innovation, this year’s team honored the past by pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with its boldest design yet: Jayhawk’s Revenge.

Led by Dominic Arbini, junior in architectural engineering and captain of the canoe from Fenton, Missouri, the team set out not just to build a canoe, but to raise the standard for the years to come.

“We’ve gotten third and second place in recent years,” Arbini said. “Jayhawk’s Revenge was about taking revenge on those close calls and aiming for our best performance yet.”

This year’s canoe includes a reimagined shape and upgrade features, including gunnels and a more paddle-friendly design aimed at making the racing experience smoother and more inviting for new members.

“Concrete is uncomfortable,” Arbini said with a laugh. “So, we tried to make it as race-friendly as possible.”

The biggest transformation came in the aesthetic approach. Departing from vinyl and stains, the team committed to a 100% concrete-based decoration, using pigmented concrete to create vivid, fully integrated visuals. At the heart of the design? A hand-crafted pirate treasure map featuring the KU campus, representing the team’s second home – the first being, of course, the concrete lab.

“Every inch of this canoe is concrete,” said Arrington Farmer, graduate in architectural engineering and graduate adviser for the program, from Edwardsville, Illinois. “Every design aspect that we chose this year was just trying to push us to be better and better. At some point, we said, ‘Well, we’re already doing so much. Let’s go a little bit farther.’”

This year’s build also reflected the evolution of a post-COVID comeback. After the team briefly dissolved in 2021, a few determined students – including Farmer and former captain Cam Figgins, graduate in civil engineering, from Shawnee – restarted the program.

“This was the first year where a lot of members of the exec board had some experience and had some idea of what we were doing,” Farmer said.

For this year’s team, the journey was one of constant adaptation and community-building. From a cracked canoe to cold, rainy competition conditions, the KU Concrete Canoe team embraced the challenges head-on. Those moments that aren’t necessarily fun in the moment but quickly become unforgettable in retrospect are what the team now lovingly refers to as “Type II-fun.” Long nights, messy labs, surprise challenges — all now memories the team treasures.

“Every time I went to the lab this year, I got to spend time with my friends,” Arbini said. “It kept me motivated. This has been the best part of my college experience.”

Farmer, who plans to move to Texas after her graduation in May, agrees. 

“I don’t think we’ll remember the hard times as much as we’ll remember the wins, the laughs and the people. That’s what sticks with you.”

There are many words of wisdom both Arbini and Farmer, as well as Darwin, can offer, but mainly the best thing to do is just to show up.

“It’s intimidating to join a technical club,” Arbini said. “But just be there, ask questions and get involved. We love what we do, and we want to share it.”

“There are no stupid questions,” said Farmer, “especially in a project this unconventional. New members often bring ideas we haven’t thought of.”

Heading into his last year as captain, Arbini hopes to continue to grow the knowledge of building a concrete canoe to pass down to the next 50 years of teams, but for the most part, he just looks forward to growing the community and changing the narrative of engineering-focused activities.

“I’d love to push to have more events on the lake so that we can not only bring people in but show them that we’re not just a bunch of nerds in a lab,” said Arbini with a laugh. “We do have fun. I want to build up a good team so the program can continue to grow when I’m gone.”