A team from the School of Civil Engineering and Transportation at South China University of Technology (SCUT) secured the national championship in the straight-line sprint category at the 7th International Concrete Dragon Boat Competition for University Students (ICDBC), held at Dalian University of Technology from May 24 to 25, 2025.

  The competition, themed Gliding Over Waves, Chasing Dreams Upon the Water, featured 36 teams from 22 universities nationwide in the finals. The SCUT entry, titled Soaring Bird and mentored by instructors Hu Nan and Zhou Binzhen, clinched the top prize in the straight-line sprint and earned a second-place national award overall. The team members—Zhang Ao, Wang Huiyuan, Bai Zhuo, Xu Pinhao, and Zheng Minghe—designed and built the winning vessel. The project demonstrates remarkable innovation through its hybrid construction: a partially 3D-printed dragon boat frame combined with a traditional origami-inspired exterior. The 3D-printed skeleton offers superior performance and lightweight properties, utilizing eco-friendly recycled PLA material. The dragon scales on the boat's surface are meticulously folded using traditional paper craft techniques recognized as intangible cultural heritage, seamlessly integrated with the dragon head and tail to form a cohesive whole. The design features a black-and-red base color on the lower hull, with a titanium-silver surface symbolizing the dragon boat's courageous advance through turbulent waters, and gold accents representing brightness and hope.