Lakehead wins top prizes in first entry into the Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race

Lakehead University’s very first entry into the Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race (GNCTR) was a resounding success, with the team scooping the Best New Team Award at the national competition hosted by Concordia University in Montreal at the end of January.

Lakehead also received the Most Inclusive Team Award, celebrating their commitment to fostering a welcoming and supportive environment for all participants.

The Lakehead team, co-captained by Civil Engineering students Elian Drummond and Faryal Faisal, was made up of a multidisciplinary group of students and competed against universities and colleges from all over Canada. The team finished 11th overall on their debut, out of 18 entries, and was the only team in the whole competition not to receive any deduction points.

“We are immensely proud of the terrific performance of the Lakehead team in their inaugural entry into this competition. This is only the beginning of what will become a tradition with future teams building on the legacy of this pioneering group of students,” said Janusz Kozinski, Dean of Engineering at Lakehead University.

The Lakehead GNCTR team was only established last year, and since then they have made rapid progress in a short space of time to design and build the Lakehead toboggan, and to attract an impressive array of sponsors to support the project.

The Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race is the largest and longest running engineering competition in North America. Teams must design and construct a toboggan with a metal frame and a running surface made completely out of concrete and racing it down a steep snow-covered hill. The sled must weigh less than 350 pounds, have a working braking system, and be fitted with a roll cage to protect its five passengers.