Jorge Gonzalez is one of those people who loves to play with concrete. He also likes the sense of pride that comes from competing in the west’s largest concrete canoe competition.

More than 100 people gathered on the shores of the Sparks Marina Friday to watch Gonzalez, along with two other University of Nevada, Reno engineering students, paddle their 120-pound concrete canoe through obstacle courses and across the water.

The university team swept all five of the scheduled races Friday, winning against five competing California universities. Today, they will compete in oral presentations on their engineering at the university campus. Those interested in hearing how the teams made concrete float can attend the lectures at the Joe Crowley Student Union theater on the UNR campus, starting at 8 a.m. Winners will be announced at a banquet at the Circus Circus casino at 7 p.m.

The university and the marina are the hosts for this year’s Society of Civil Engineers Mid-Pacific Conference. Engineering students from across the west converged at the marina to see just how well they could make concrete float.

“This is civil engineering at its best,” said Gonzalez, president of the university’s ASCE chapter. “You are making the impossible happen.”

Students from UNR have taken first at the regional competition for the past two years. The wins have garnered the university a little scholarship money as well as the opportunity to advance to the national concrete canoe engineering competition. UNR swept last year’s competition and placed third in the 2007 nationals.

The $5,000 scholarship spoils from last year’s national win were divided among the team for school expenses.

Other than the potential for a little money, the team members said the biggest payoff from the competition was the pride of seeing their canoe float across the water.

According to Gonzalez, the team of 16 has spent close to 2,500 hours working on their concrete creation.

“That means weekends and a couple all-nighters,” Gonzalez said.

The university does not offer any class credit for the year-long engineering adventure.

“The payoff (for me) is the camaraderie,” Gonzalez said. “And you get to play with concrete on the weekends.”

UNR, which is the reigning national concrete canoe champion, will be represented by one team of four women, one team of four men and “Fusion,” a floating canoe of concrete that team members hope will slice through the competition.

UNR has had a history of tough competition from the University of California, Berkley. Berkley lost the national competition to UNR in 2008 by just nine points.

“We have probably spent about 5,000 hours (on this year’s canoe,)” said Dan Gee, construction manager for the Berkley team and a graduating civil engineering student. “We started throwing out ideas right after last year’s competition and started working on the canoe in mid-September.”

The UNR team started just about the same time, according to paddling coach Jeff Weagel. The senior civil engineering student at UNR remembers cracking though thin sheets of ice early this year as the university’s team practiced their paddling on a prototype.

“You develop really good friendships and an awesome sense of accomplishment and pride when you create something like this,” Weagel said.