Students from Florida International University in Miami walked on water Thursday for a class assignment.To do it,they wore aquatic  shoes they designed and created. Alex Quinones was the first to make it to the other side of a 175-foot lake on campus in record time--just over a minute.Quinones,who wore oversized boat-like shoes,also won last year and will receive $ 500.Students had to wear the aquatic shoes and make it across the lake in order to earn an "A" on the assignment for Architecture Professor Jaime Canaves,Materials and Methods Construction Class."It's traditional in a school of architecture to do boats out of cardboard for a boat race.I thought our students were a little bit more special than that," Canaves said." We decided to do the walk on water event to take it to the next level." A total of 79 students competed in the race this year in 41 teams.Only 10 teams failed to cross the lake.Others who fell got back up and made it to the end.The race is open to all students and anyone in the community.The youngest person to ever participate was a 9-year-old girl who competed in place of her mother,while the oldest was a 67-year-old female. A large crowd on campus joined Canaves as he cheered on the racers.He shouted encouraging words,but also laughed as some unsteadily made their way to the end. "A part of this is for them to have more understanding of designing and make it work better," he said.It is also a lesson in life for the students. "Anything,including walking on water,is possible,if you do the research,test it and go through the design process seriously." According to Canaves,this race can help the students  _  .
understand designing better achieve almost everything work together and unite as one walk on the surface of water