GNCTR 2014 in London, Ontario

This year's concrete toboggan race hosted by Western was the first since 2010 to held on the eastern half of Canada (due to the narrowly cancelled 2012 race) where it was hosted by McMaster in Hamilton. The team finally did not have to pay for flights to cross the entire country or ship the toboggan in a giant crate, which saved a lot of time, paperwork, and money.

The team took a totally new direction on the toboggan design this year after the team carpenter convinced the team that the frame should be built out of wood. They also went with a 2 front ski and 1 rear ski design which at first when it was constructed looked a bit unstable, but really solidified when the rest of the frame was installed. The concrete mix for the skis included needle reinforcement in a basic concrete mix with higher than average fly ash (for competition points). Two GFRP bars were cast into the skis along with the mounting plates to attach the skis to the frame. This was the 3rd year in a row where the Waterloo team used the Architecture CNC machine to create the formwork, which allows for some creativity in the shape of the skis and the running surface. A UW alumni called their shape "so 90's" whereas the design captain joked that it fit their theme of sailors and boats. The steering system was a scissor-type connection to the two front skis with a nice big handlebars in the front. First hand experience the one night in the E5 parking lot, I can say it steered very well and smoothly. The brake was a giant plate the width of the toboggan that was hand-activated by two vertical handles. This design was paired down by the GNCTR safety committee from having a horizontal grab bar at chest height to just the vertical handles at about 18" tall.

My hope was to make it out for the tech exhibit on the Friday, stay the night with the team in London and then see the race on Saturday morning. These plans had to get altered to just the race day because of work on Friday, so I ended up going to the Friday night dance in Toronto . I rented a car for the weekend since I was planning on also attending the Toronto swing dancing exchange on Saturday night and the Imperial social on Sunday night. There was a lot of driving planned for that weekend, and of course there was a snow storm forecasted. After a few hiccups at the rental place in the morning, I was on my way out of Waterloo around 9:45am and got to Boler Mountain at 11am. As I parked and ran to the hill with the dubstep music playing (obviously GNCTR and not the family-friendly area). Just as I got there, I see the large digital display with "Run 1 now: Waterloo" which made me exciting that I didn't miss it. Turns out this was their second run and because of hill conditions at the top, the brake was getting caught on the bump of the hill. Sadly, they were taken off the track, disqualified, and the next team went to race. Their first run at 9am that I missed came very close to being the top speed at 38 km/h. This is much slower than the 2012 race in Calgary, but there were also no major injuries this year.

After lunch was the the king of the hill race, where teams battle in an elimination style for the faster run. During the break after Waterloo's second run, they chipped some notches into the frame near the rear ski in order for the brake to swing forward and higher by even a 1/2" in order to not get caught in the snow. This did really well for them for two runs..until one of the eye bolts got pulled straight, a cable came undone and one of the welds holding the brake plate to the handles sheared. Originally being disqualified, the team's carpenter grabbed his circular saw, cut off the other weld to remove the plate, and the team convinced the safety committee that the two vertical handles would suffice as individual emergency hand brakes. In the end, they came out third, and had more runs on their toboggan than any UW team in the past 3 years.

Considering that the skis were cast less than 28 days before the race and there was no frame 2 weeks prior to the competition, the majority of the GNCTR organizers and judges being doubtful of the wood construction, they did very well and should be proud.

Congratulations UW GNCTR 2014! :D

PCL, one of their sponsors, is also interested in featuring their team and toboggan, which is a great opportunity for them. Super glad I could make it in the end :) Oh yes, the drive back from London was quite an adventure since the rental car had no snow tyres and I was not able to make it out of my driveway that night. Yay adventure!