The Cardboard Canoe project was a lot of fun. I paired myself with Chase Israel, and David, all previous winners from the previous year's challenge, so I had a pretty good feeling about who was gonna win. Nevertheless, I was amazed and unprepared to witness the scale of our victory, which was unanimous. I was blown away by the beautiful execution of our boat which flawlessly won every competition in our class. A wonderful experience to say the least.
Here are the achievements we won and their justifications:
1. Define the problem and brainstorm solutions
The problem is taking cardboard and duct tape and creating a somewhat durable watercraft. These materials are not widely used in the ship industry. Most cruise ships or oil tankers are made out of steel and paint, but we are required to use cardboard and duct tape only. I hope you see what I'm getting at here. It was hard.
Solutions:
-Strong
-Fast
-Large
-High walls
-Sleek
-Well floating
-Balance
-Conserves Duct Tape
-Broad
-Water resistant
-Reinforced structure
-Good wall joints
-maneuverable
-Double walled and floored
-Completely covered in Duct tape
-Damage resistant corners
-Ability to have two people in and remain dry
-Small enough that we don't need to work on it outside of class time
-Easy to move (not too heavy)
-colorful and artistic
2. Criteria and Constraints
The main criteria we focused on was the ability to traverse the pool successfully, which we did.
The 3 main Constraints we focused on were using quality cardboard approved by our instructor, using only cardboard and duct tape to build the boat, and covering the entire canoe, inside and out, with duct tape, well.
3. Sketch Ideas
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| Design #1 |
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| Design #2 |
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| Design #3 |
4. Prototype Ideas
5. Select an Approach
Simple Matrix:
Boat 1: Flat Bottomed, V shaped in Front, High Walls, requires alot of tape (+++-)
Boat 2:Flat Bottomed, Diagonal Front board, High walls, thick walls, requires alot of tape (++++-)
Boat 3:V Bottomed, V shaped in Front, Requires double sided paddle, Fast shape, unstable(---+-)
We chose our 2nd prototype boat because it is similar to what my team used last year. It requires alot of tape, but everything else about it is great.
6. Build It!
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| Our Boat |
7. The Fastest
Our boat took just 24.57 seconds to cross the pool, by far the best time. The runner up was 6.4 seconds behind us!
8. The Farthest
Our boat traveled 250 yards, or 10 laps, before we had to begin the other challenges. We definitely could have gone farther.
9. The Longest
We had the longest functioning boat in our entire class. It could have lasted much, much longer but at the end, we decided to fill it with about 500 pounds instead.
10. Balance Master
Both Chase and Israel stood up in our boat at the same time for quite a while!
11. Videographer
This was my job. Here's the video:
12. Feedback
Our group collectively came up with this feedback:
1. Strong floor really supported our weight well.
2. The front and back walls were well duct taped and remained powerful even after we had sunk.
3. Our swimmers really moved quickly and dominated the other teams.
4. The side walls were weak, we should have put on more layers of cardboard, and it would have held for a little longer.
5. Our vibrant colors really added to our design.
6. We could have duct taped the boat better - this ultimately was our slow demise, we should have taken more times, maybe at a Lunch, to duct tape it better.
7. Our boat design was copied by other teams, but ours work the best.
8. We had a very hydrodynamic design for gliding through the water.
9. We had a lighter person, Chase, to go in the boat at first, but it could even hold me.
10. We mangled the original box design to create our own formation, we could have made a V – bottom.
13. How Low did you go?
Calculations:
Water = 1.936 lbs./cubic ft.
Chase = 150 lbs.
150/1.936 = 77.47/12 = 6.5 inches
Our boat went down about 6 inches average (the front was higher up than the back).
14. Redesign
If we were to redesign our boat, the only main thing I would do is fortify the side walls and bottom with extra layers of cardboard.
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| Redesign |
15. Make your own achievement
Our achievement was for our boat to hold 500 pounds! Chase, Israel, and I all got in the boat at the same time and it still floated. We would call this achievement the "Heavy Loader".
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