If anyone knows how to enjoy the winter and all the snow, it’s Canadians.
On Saturday, with snow falling for most of the day, Western University played host to the Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race.
The annual event is the largest student engineering competition in Canada and the challenge is for teams to apply knowledge learned in the classroom to create a toboggan with a running surface made of concrete.
About 450 students from across the country, and one school in Michigan, competed at Boler Mountain.
“We've been working diligently for eight months on this project,” says Western’s team captain, Doug Provost.
“Hundreds and hundreds of hours we put in. I would say it's been very time consuming.”
On the final day of the competition, a panel of judges determines the winner of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering Cup.
Win or lose, it’s all in the name of fun and learning.
“It's been a blast, having a great time and getting to know a lot of people,” Provost said.
For the team from Michigan, they were making a toboggan for the first time.
“This was brand new for us. Figuring out the speed and the dynamics of a whole toboggan was hard. We had no idea what we were doing but we worked through it,” said captain Felicia Koch.
“It's been so energetic and the spirit, we weren't expecting this much, but it's been awesome.”
