- UF’s Department of Civil & Coastal Engineering is home to two national champion design teams: Concrete Canoe and Steel Bridge.
- The Eckhoff Steel Bridge Team and the Concrete Canoe Team have won a combined total of 13 national championships in ASCE competitions.
- The program, its facilities and its faculty advisor are all part of the program’s success.
In the bowels of Weil Hall, affectionately known as The Pit, a rabbit’s warren of rooms and hallways lead to a nondescript industrial space with a bare concrete floor.
In this unlikeliest of places, champions are advised and championships are won.
The Weil Hall Structures and Materials Laboratory, as it’s properly known, is home to two wildly successful student design teams under the auspices of the University of Florida’s chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers, or ASCE.
The successes of the Eckhoff Steel Bridge and Concrete Canoe teams are well-documented. The Eckhoff team has won the ASCE national title eight times since 1997 (including six in a row), the most wins in the competition’s 33-year history. The UF Concrete Canoe team has won the national title at the ASCE competition five times — 2025, 2024, 2021, 2019 and 2015.
The Steel Bridge Team is so well known, its reputation often precedes it.
“By about our fourth year of consecutive national championships, I remember going to nationals, and we were just swamped with people. Everybody wanted to see our bridge design, everybody wanted to see how we assembled the bridge. It’s a lot of pressure on the students, and it’s nerve-wracking for me,” said UF Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering Professor of Practice Taylor Rawlinson, Ph.D., P.E., the faculty advisor for both teams.
So, what is it about this civil engineering program that spawns so many winning teams? For starters, it’s a secret. “Proprietary methods” is all Rawlinson will say when asked about the secrets to success.
All the same, the secret sauce certainly includes two ingredients: hard work and relentless practice.
The Concrete Canoe team builds two canoes each year. The competition canoe hits the water twice (regionals and nationals); the other canoe is for practice. Very few other schools do this. Though race performance is a small part of the overall score, the team trains throughout the year, running stadium steps and practicing in past years’ canoes to maintain peak physical conditioning and build comradery. Rawlinson, no slouch in the physical conditioning department, trained with the team exactly once — he couldn’t keep up.
The Steel Bridge team is just as zealous, practicing twice a day for weeks in the lab and arriving days early for competitions, just to be able to practice in the hotel’s parking lot or another suitable area.
Rawlinson has worked closely with both teams since his arrival at UF in 2016. As he spent time with the students, he noticed the teams had something special: distinct cultures, ingrained motivation and tons of talent.
“Our students are extremely talented,” Rawlinson explained. “What I find is that giving them a little bit of direction and a little bit of organization harnesses that talent and allows them to thrive.”
“You’re going to get good work out of them because they’re all self-starters,” added former Concrete Canoe faculty advisor and Professor Emeritus Robert Thieke, Ph.D.
It takes a special kind of student to get involved in these design teams. Students receive no academic credit for participation and routinely put in long hours.
It takes a special kind of space, too. The lab, shared with other student groups and faculty researchers, serves as design headquarters and an informal team hangout.
“They socialize and do classwork here together,” Rawlinson said. “They’re making friends and future colleagues. We’re providing a space and structure, like a second home. Weekends, they’re here, learning from each other.”
Rawlinson’s door is just a few feet away — and always open.
“I always tell my students that my job is to be interrupted,” he said.
“What I bring to the teams is continuity from year to year,” he added. “Any institution, any engineering firm where there was 50% turnover from year to year probably wouldn’t be very good. I’m the only constant, so it’s my role to provide a bit of institutional knowledge and the organizational structure for the teams.”
While Rawlinson deflects success to his students, they throw it right back at him.
“Dr. Rawlinson is the rock of the team,” said John Willetts, Steel Bridge Team 2025–26 project manager. “His advice and experience help facilitate smooth transitions between teams, especially with all the member turnover. He is always there to help explain the ‘why’ of our work, which is critical to new-member involvement and retention.”
The intensive work and long hours during the academic year form strong bonds. While Rawlinson might provide gentle guidance, the students largely recruit their own team members and onboard the newbies.
“Our team is unique because of the individual devotion from our leadership,” noted Nate Riker, a civil engineering undergraduate student. “Since our team is composed of both leaders and new members, we depend on our ability to train and build up new members. As members transition into leadership, they’re driven to match and exceed the work of the previous leaders.”
These days, the teams almost run themselves. The programs have existed long enough that culture, tradition and methodology are passed down year to year.
The teams have specific needs as they prepare for competitions. The canoe team, for example, is in the business of making the unfloatable float. They must utilize creative concrete mixes and fabrication strategies, combined with hydrodynamic design, to build a canoe that floats and performs well in the signature race. They design the hull, create a mold, then — in one nerve-wracking day — mold the concrete mix onto the form to create the canoe structure.
“The canoe is made in a day, but there are months that lead up to it,” Rawlinson explained. “There are 30 or 40 people here in the lab on a (concrete) pour day. It’s a lot to coordinate but also a lot of fun.”
A 20-page proposal, presentation, questions from the judges and visual appeal are all scored along with the race results.
“They train all year for it, Rawlinson said. “They’ll go out to the lake and practice with old canoes. Rain or shine at the lake, day or night in the lab, Concrete Canoe is refining their craft.”
To prepare for their competitions, the Steel Bridge team must develop a scale-model steel bridge, determining how to fabricate their bridge while planning an efficient assembly under timed construction at the competition. Bridges are then load-tested and weighed.
Design and fabrication of the components are one thing, but it’s the assembly at the competition where everything comes together. To mimic real life, construction is constrained by what can be delivered via semi-truck. And time is of the essence.
“The students are almost like a F1 pit crew,” Rawlinson described. “All the pieces start in a staging area — they’re running, passing the pieces. They can only run one piece at a time. If you drop a nut or a bolt, it’s considered a construction accident, and 15 seconds is added to your score. Pieces can only touch the ground in certain areas. It’s like a choreographed dance”
The design teams’ legacies can be seen in The Pit, not just in the cabinets packed with trophies but also above the teams’ heads, where the championship canoes are proudly displayed. But the students also will carry this legacy with them long after the last bridge is assembled and the last canoe is hoisted.
“Concrete Canoe showed me that I have the capacity to push myself and be passionate in the work I do,” said Senuki Perera, 2025 – 2026 Concrete Canoe Project Manager. “That drive and passion will be something I seek out in my future endeavors. More than anything, Concrete Canoe showed me that work doesn’t have to feel like work if you’re passionate about it.”