Students bring a can-do attitude to city-wide competition

Posted: March 29, 2011 1:00 p.m.

What is a five foot Easter Bunny doing lounging in front of a seven foot beach scene? Sounds like a riddle but is more like a recipe for feeding the hungry. The bunny and beach scene was constructed out of cans of tuna, ham, and chicken by the University of Regina's Canstruction team. The team competed in Regina's 2011 Canstruction event last week.

Canstruction is an annual design contest held in cities around the world to raise not just food donations but awareness of the need for community support of local food banks.  During each Canstruction event, engineering, design, and architecture firms compete to build the most spectacular sculptures from cans of food that are later donated to local food banks.  Internationally, Canstruction has raised over 15 million pounds of food since its inception in 1992. This year's event theme was Easter/Spring Break.

Canstruction is one of the Regina and District Food Bank's biggest annual events, and it is an event the University of Regina team, under the direction of David deMontigny and Heidi Smithson of the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, looks forward to every year.

"We think this is a really important event for our faculty and for the university to support," says deMontigny. "Engineering is about serving society and helping to solve problems. This event gives us a chance to demonstrate not only our creative skills but also our commitment to making Regina a better place to live for all of us."

Every year, the University of Regina team has been made up largely of first year engineering students, but the team has also included students from the Faculties of Business Administration and Science.  "Even though this is an engineering-oriented event, it takes the whole university community to make it happen," explains deMontigny.  The students engage in a number of fundraising efforts from holding a hot dog sale and steak night on campus to campaigning for support from various campus organizations and from their friends, family, and classmates.

"It takes a lot of cans to make one of these sculptures," explains deMontigny, "which is fine by us," he adds, "because it means we get to donate a lot of cans to the food bank." The University of Regina team has donated a total of 11,000 cans over the past three years.

The University of Regina team has been successful every year, winning several of the top prizes. This year, the team secured the award for "Best Use of Labels" and "Honourable Mention" for Judges' Choice.

The Canstruction entries are on display in the Northgate and Cornwall Centre Malls in Regina from March 26 to April 9. The viewing is free to the public. Canned food donations are accepted.

To learn more about this year's event and the other teams, displays, and awards, visit www.urengineering.ca.