Rise of the Purple Cobras

A new semester is upon us and with it brings the anticipation of the upcoming competition, which is only a week away. I have been on the team for four years now, and every year I get just as excited for this annual engineering event. For those wondering what the competition is all about, I will go over some of the more important details. GNCTR was started in 1974 as a competition between the Universities of Alberta and Calgary, and NAIT and SAIT.
Today, more than 400 students from 20 universities from across Canada participate in this engineering event. Teams design and build sleds made with a running surface of entirely concrete in order to race down ski hills. To compete, toboggans must have room for 5 people, working steering and braking systems, functional roll cage, and weigh less than 300 lbs.
Over the last four months, members of our club have been working hard to bring our team this year back to where we were 3 years ago, when we last won the competition. Hours of hard work have been spent on the design and construction of our sled, tech display, costumes, and all the other technical elements which go into making the team successful.
During next two weeks, I, the co-captain of the University of Alberta team, will be blogging about the exciting experiences which lead up to and occur at the Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race (GNCTR). The next week will be filled with long hours, as we put the finishing touches on our toboggan and doing test runs, costumes are being sewed, and the technical display is being constructed prior to our departure to Vancouver. All 30 members of our competing team and 15 members of our non-competing team are eagerly counting down the days till we get to show off all the effort which has gone into preparing for the competition.

-Dylan Bolch