MEDIA ADVISORY

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Forget the garbage can lids, plastic bags and rubber inner tubes. Building a fast toboggan takes a lot of ingenuity, a little creativity and something more concrete– as in the mixture, that is. Just ask six engineering students at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who leave Monday, Jan. 31, to compete in the Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race held at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Fairbanks community members will get a chance to check out UAF's 14-foot-long concrete sled, which the student team spent the past year designing and constructing, tomorrow at 3 p.m. in the Duckering building, room 125. UA President Mark Hamilton and UAF Chancellor Marshall Lind have been invited to attend, as well as representatives from several local businesses who sponsored the collaborative project.

More than 30 teams from Canada and the United States will compete in the annual race, which challenges students to design, build and race concrete sleds that are structurally sound and super fast. Last year, the Nanooks received "Rookie Team of the Year" honors and were the only Americans to place. Toboggans are judged on two main criteria: technical expertise, which evaluates the concrete mix, superstructure and brake design; and the performance during the race, including braking distance.

"If you try to stop and the sled breaks apart, you aren't necessarily disqualified," said team member Chris Salmon. "The judges just measure where the last piece– or, in most cases, person– lands, and that's your braking distance."

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CONTACT: Chris Salmon, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, at (907) 474-5334.

JCS/1-28-00/00-043ma