Life size cardboard boats, it seems like a bad idea; you may be thinking "how can cardboard hold a person, above water!" well that's the question we challenged ourselves to answer. the regatta, tested many categories such as style, style of sinking, speed, endurance, and effort. our steam science class and the Perry Central physics class, engineered there best "boats" from three rolls of duck tape and all of the (non-reinforced) cardboard we wanted! These are the rules we agreed on - only three rolls of duck tape, two passengers must sit and float in your boat, if one of your members falls your time stops until they are back on, when your boat completely sinks your time stops, no reinforced cardboard, no water resistant paint, and you have to use paddles (no kicking). When we started our project, we spent three days on design and gathering materials. although those three days of preparation put us behind in building, It helped us get second place in the long run. For our design we created a box, from smaller boxes and made it big enough to be buoyant when it holds two members of our team, then we made cross patterns with the tape and cardboard for extra strength, finally we completely duck taped the bottom and sides of our boat! (for extra protection)
This is our boat before the race -
This is our boat before the race -
We stayed afloat for 1 minute and 56 seconds, taking second place.
first place stayed afloat for 27 minutes and 50 seconds.
this is there boat -
first place stayed afloat for 27 minutes and 50 seconds.
this is there boat -
Even though we didn't come in first place, I had a really fun time creating and racing the cardboard boats! Hopefully you will try to be a part of a cardboard boat regatta, because it really is a fun and education experience.