The boat race is a great way to end a week of teamwork and competition. This is the ultimate engineering challenge! Your team has 24 hours to put together a 4-person boat. This craft will race against other teams (and perhaps cross-town rival Ottawa U, if they don't chicken out yet again.)

Design of the boat is usually hotly debated within the group. When the plans are complete, the team must find the materials. Each group has $30 to spend. This requires a lot of creativity in procuring construction materials. Twenty-four hours is very little time. It is not unusual to find frosh hammering and sawing (welding?!?!) all night. However, be forewarned: late night partying and hammering tends to attract visits from by-law enforcers, so choose your shipyard with care. Don't forget to christen your boat with a name!

Once the boat is complete it's time to race. It is unlikely you will have time to test the boat (although it helps), so the first minutes of the race are usually the most exciting. Transporting the boat from its birthplace to the starting line can be a challenge in itself. Take it from a veteran: blocking a lane of Colonel By drive so that you and your teammates can carry a boat on your shoulders is not the best idea!

The key is to make sure the boat floats! Swimming in the Rideau Canal is something to be avoided. Those who end up in the canal during frosh week are later identifiable by an unhealthy green pallor. Getting to the finish line is an even greater challenge all boats are armed with the latest in di-hydrogen monoxide projectile technology. This is the ultimate in survival of the fittest, a feat that would make even Darwin blush. For all the survivors, (and all the not so surviving) there are many a tonic to cure what the canal will ail you.

Sailing gracefully down the canal-could there BE a better way to wrap up frosh week?