FARMINGTON HILLS, MI - The American Concrete Institute (ACI) is pleased to announce its continued co-sponsorship of the Annual National Concrete Canoe Competition (NCCC).

The event, sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and hosted by École de Technologie Supérieure (ÉTS), will be held June 19-21, 2008, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Exhibition events will take place in downtown Montreal at Place du Canada, and canoe races will be held in the Olympic Basin at Notre-Dame Island.

This spring, over 200 university teams competed in 18 conference contests to qualify for participation at the national level. Winners at each conference level are invited to participate in the 21st Annual NCCC this June.

NCCC winners are determined by four different criteria. Twenty-five percent of each team's total score will be based on the engineering design and construction principles used in the creation of their concrete canoe; 25 percent will be based on a technical design report detailing the planning, development, testing, and construction of the canoe; and 25 percent will be based on a formal business presentation highlighting the canoe's design, construction, racing ability, and other innovative features. The remaining 25 percent of each team's score is based on the performance of the canoe and the paddlers in five different race events: men's and women's slalom/endurance races, and men's, women's, and co-ed sprint races.

Academic scholarships totaling $9,000 are awarded to the winning teams' undergraduate civil engineering programs. In addition, ACI also presents the "American Concrete Institute Award for Excellence in Concrete Canoe Design" to the team that best recognizes the use of basic design principles for unconventional applications.

For more information on the NCCC, visit http://content.asce.org/conferences/nccc2008/ or call 703-295-6300.