by Cara Ramer
College students are often focused on keeping their grades afloat. At Cedarville University, first-year engineering students are taking that challenge literally.
During Cedarville's annual cardboard canoe race on Friday, Oct. 2, during homecoming weekend, students in the Cedarville University School of Engineering and Computer Science will design and build a boat made out of cardboard and packing tape. The goal is to race across Cedar Lake on campus without sinking.
The unusual challenge gives students an early introduction to engineering design. The challenge requires the students to collaborate across disciplines, work within strict constraints and turn ideas into a physical structure that can carry two people across the lake.
"It's a true engineering problem,” said Dr. Clint Kohl, senior professor of computer engineering. “Each student is given finite resources and finite time, and they must transport people across a lake. To actually build a physical artifact is completely different from writing an equation or solving a problem on paper."
With just over 55 feet of plastic-coated paperboard to work with, students operate on the narrow margin between success and failure. But the project tests more than their ability to design and construct a boat. Students must collaborate across different engineering disciplines, determine how to load and maneuver their canoes on race day and learn from designs that do not perform as expected. 
"In most college engineering labs, everyone eventually gets the experiment to work," said Kohl. "With this race, not everyone makes it across the lake — and that's okay. Some of our brightest students have sunk right off the dock, and it is a humbling reminder: 'I guess I don't know everything yet.'"
The possibility of failure is part of the lesson. Rather than simply competing in a race, students experience the engineering process from problem definition and design to construction, testing and execution.
"We want them to learn to communicate with people outside their discipline, form lasting friendships and take a project all the way from problem definition to execution," said Kohl. "Our vision is that students would discover their purpose, know their people and prepare to change the world. Whether they're a mechanical, civil, electrical, computer science or cyber operations major, they bring critical thinking, software and problem-solving skills to the table."
The competition brings together more than 200 students from across Cedarville’s engineering and computing programs in approximately 50 cardboard canoes. It also draws a crowd: Hundreds of alumni and college faculty and staff members gather around the lake to watch the competition.
Whether the boats cross the finish line or sink along the way, students leave the water with more than a race-day result. They gain firsthand experience solving problems, collaborating across disciplines, testing ideas and learning from the unexpected — skills that will follow them long after the cardboard is gone.
Cedarville University, an evangelical Christian institution in southwest Ohio, offers undergraduate and graduate residential and online programs across arts, sciences and professional fields. With 7,542 students, it is among Ohio's largest private universities and is ranked among the nation’s top five evangelical universities in the Wall Street Journal’s 2027 Best Colleges in the U.S. Cedarville is also known for its vibrant Christian community, challenging academics and high graduation and retention rates. Learn more at cedarville.edu.
