Video Game-Inspired Boats Take to the Water at 37th Roth Regatta

Stony Brook University's 37th annual Roth Regatta featured video game-inspired boats making the journey across the legendary pond. Photos by John Griffin.

The boats were built from cardboard, tape, elbow grease and a lot of hope. Some began to sink before they made it far from the Roth Pond shore.

But tragedy and triumph were both part of Stony Brook University's 37th annual Roth Regatta on May 1, which featured a video game theme that transformed the water into a gaming-style competition where success depended on design, teamwork and luck.

The banks of the pond were filled with students, faculty, staff and community members cheering as boats pushed off in heats, some reaching the 200-yard finish line in under a minute while others sank almost immediately.

"I am so thrilled to be here on this absolutely glorious day," said Stony Brook President Andrea Goldsmith, who welcomed spectators and competitors to the event. "This has been taking place since 1989, where all of you, our aspiring students, faculty and staff, have showcased your brilliant creativity and engineering talents to build these boats and race them across the pond. You bring incredible energy and passion to this, celebrating our amazing students and the community that defines Stony Brook."

The annual tradition, organized by the Undergraduate Student Government (USG), challenges teams to build boats using only cardboard, duct tape, string and paint to compete in Speedster (two-person) and Yacht (four-person) divisions while being judged for design, originality and spirit.

Stony Brook University President Andrea Goldsmith was among the hundreds of people taking in the sights and sounds of the beloved campus tradition.

This year's video game theme added another layer of creativity, and for the first time, the Stony Brook Southampton campus was represented, with students launching a boat and joining fellow students from the main campus.

"We had students out here at 9 am to make sure they were ready," said junior Alleyna Charoo, current programming coordinator with USG and incoming vice president of student life. "This year especially, with the video game theme, people got really creative. We saw custom shirts, detailed builds, and a lot of thought put into how each team wanted to represent their idea."

Charoo added that they capped the number of boats at 100 because there was so much interest, and offered more giveaways this year than ever before, with bucket hats in addition to t-shirts.

Among the entries was "Dunkin' Kong," built by a group of students who work together on campus. "We all work at Dunkin' Donuts, so we're always together anyway," said Yoselin Garcia, a senior double major in applied math and economics, adding that the idea of entering the regatta started as a joke. "We had talked about doing the regatta before, but when we saw the theme, the idea of 'Dunkin' Kong' based on Donkey Kong just clicked. It felt like something we had to commit to, and once we started building, everyone had a role in making it happen."

An engineering student on the team helped guide the mechanics of the build. "I definitely over-engineered this boat a little bit," said Andrew Girgis, a junior mechanical engineering major. "I was trying to calculate how much weight we needed to support, using gravity and the density of water to figure out the size. But once you actually start building, it turns into a lot of trial and error. We went through way more duct tape than we expected. We made three trips to the store and probably used around 30 rolls just trying to make sure everything held together."

Not every team was as scientific in their approach to the build. "We kind of improvised the whole thing," said Matthew Cirrito, a freshman electrical engineering major, describing the build process for "On the Styx." "We didn't really have a detailed plan. We just started putting it together and adjusted as we went."

Even so, the team had some logic behind the design. "We made it thinner on purpose," added Ethan Lee, a freshman computer engineering student. "There's a ratio that we were thinking about, where you can get more balance while also reducing water resistance. So we tried to keep it narrow but stable. We didn't test it in the water before today, so at this point we're just hoping it works. It just needs to float enough to keep it moving."

Some teams emphasized form as well as construction. "I think our boat is both wide enough and light enough to support both rowers without dragging too much," said Peyton Edwards, a junior majoring in human evolutionary biology and a member of the "Five Nights Afloat" team. "But it wasn't just the design. We were really focused on pushing the boat hard into the water and staying steady the whole way, because once you're out there, you can feel every shift in the water."

Rowers had to adapt and pivot quickly while on the water. "When we started rowing, we tried to stay in sync the whole time," said Jeremy Leventhal, a sophomore majoring in technological systems management. "I was following what he was doing in the front, but once we started to drift, I had to switch sides to get us back on course. Those small adjustments really matter when you're trying to keep the boat moving straight."

The event continues to grow each year, said Christine Marullo, director of Student Engagement and Activities. "We have participation from faculty and staff, from students, and even students from the Suffolk Community College Seawolves at Suffolk program joining us," she said. "We are really grateful to have sponsorship from the School of Medicine, Wegmans and Santander Bank, and we are so grateful for their support that allows us to continue to make this event bigger and better every year. It's something that really brings the community together."

By the end of the afternoon, a few teams sped ahead of the competition. Super Mario Book Kart, designed and crewed by student employees from SBU Libraries, took the Speedster division with a time of 54.82 seconds and brought home the top prize, while Professor Basile's Lab claimed the Yacht division in 59.63 seconds.

Many competitors found that the experience mattered more than medals or trophies. "The best part was working together to build the boat," Girgis said. "It gave us a break from everything else, from classes and work. We were just figuring it out together, making something from scratch and seeing if it would actually hold up. That's what made it fun."

- Beth Squire