Cardboard Boats? Do They Float?

 In Pre-engineering Technology, we designed and built cardboard boats.  My partner was Victoria Olsen.  We first researched different types of boats.  It was to help us come up with a design for our own boat.  I was in charge of researching the catamaran.  I really enjoy sailing on catamarans and I love the way that they glide through the water.  I think that is why we decided to use the catamaran as our design.

Our design was based on a catamaran at first, then it became more of a trimaran design.  It had a big hull in the middle and two smaller ones on the sides.  We would sit the middle one and the sides ones were to help it float.  We decided that that catamaran would be too hard to build since the main part is elevated above the water.  That part we put in the water so it became a trimaran.  

Me and Victoria with our boat at Ecker Aquatic Center

When we went to actually build the boat, we realized we didn't actually have that much time until we took them to the pool.  There was also a fight for cardboard.  Some groups got more, and some didn't get any.   We ended up getting two big boxes and some smaller pieces of cardboard.  We were given only two rolls of duct tape, a bottle of glue, and as much cardboard as we could get.

We used the big pieces of the cardboard for the bottom and the sides of the boat.  We glued them together, but we taped all of the seams.

We struggled to measure out all of the parts, and make each side of the boat even.  Sometimes the tape wouldn't even stay down and hold the boat together.


When the time came to paint it, we started with white.  The white ran out very quickly because so many people were using it.  We then had to switch to black.  I think that the black sides looked cooler, but we had one of the sides white.  There were no other colors we could decorate the rest of the boat with though.

Our team name was the Hawaiian Leis.  We tried to dress like were in Hawaii, so we wore our swim suits and I did my hair in an updo with a flower.  I also wore a sarong like I always do when we are in Hawaii.  We didn't have the most spirit, but we did have more than most of the boys.

Victoria, Claire, Meghan, and Me.  We are the only
 four girls in our class

Because of our time constraint, we couldn't build the side hulls and the finished product was a monohull.  Truthfully, it looked more like a cardboard box without a top.  The back and the front ended up more flat than pointed.

We went to the Ecker Aquatic Center to test the boats.  Since there were a total of nine boats, there were two heats.  Our boat went in the second heat.

Our boat actually did float, against all predictions.  We previously thought that we would get into the boat and it would sink like a rock all the way down to the bottom.  We had absolutely no confidence in our boat.

The flat front of the boat made it really hard to paddle across.  Our boat floated really well, but we had a hard time getting it across the pool.  The kick boards we used as paddles weren't working very well.  Our final time was 1 minute and 13 seconds.

There were a couple of boats that did end up sinking.  The boats came out of the pool as a blob of wet soggy cardboard.  Overall, everybody had a good time hanging out at the pool.