True to the motto ‘Gotta Catch 'Em All’, the OTH Regensburg concrete canoe team travelled to the international concrete canoe regatta in Eindhoven (Netherlands) at the beginning of May. There, 40 students from the Faculty of Civil Engineering competed against more than 30 teams from other colleges and universities - with great success: the Regensburg team with the canoes ‘Schiggy’ and ‘Bisasam’ achieved a total of nine podium finishes, including first place three times, including over 100 metres (women) and 200 metres (mixed). The students also clearly won the special event - collecting rubber ducks.
The work in the concrete canoe team combines theory and practice: students learn how to work with thin-walled concrete components, how to lay carbon reinforcement and gain experience in areas such as materials research, construction, public relations and organisation. This not only results in technically sophisticated canoes, but also interdisciplinary skills such as teamwork, project management and interdisciplinary networking - important foundations for later professional life.
The team is particularly proud of its anniversary this year: the concrete canoe project at OTH Regensburg has been running for 20 years. In 2005, Prof. habil. Wolfgang Kusterle built the first boat together with his students - and even then the team finished on the podium. To mark the anniversary, a celebratory event was held on 3 June with current and former team members, supervising professors and sponsors. In his presentation, Prof. Kusterle looked back on the beginnings and development of the project, while Dean Prof. Andreas Ottl emphasised the importance of the Betonkanu team for practice-oriented education.
One highlight of the evening was the spontaneous races on the OTH lake - the training facility that was officially made available to the team for the first time this year on request. Many thanks to Mr Endres and President Prof Dr Schneider for making this possible.
The Betonkanu team would like to thank all those who supported the project: the supervising teachers, dedicated tutors, former and active members as well as the long-standing sponsors. Without them, this project would not have been possible in this form - and the next 20 years can come.
