Aluminum Boat Competition

This is compliments of my Teaching Assistant from the summer of '98 while teaching at Johns Hopkins Univ CTY, Amy Kastner, a GREAT new member of our profession. The object is to build a boat out of aluminum foil ONLY that will hold the largest number of nails before sinking. 2 trials. 1st trial; give each kid or team one sheet of aluminum foil about 1 sq ft in area (or any size YOU decide). They design and construct their boat using ONLY the Al foil. The competition has them placing 16d (penny) nails into their boat while floating in a sink or aquarium. As soon as the boat begins "taking on water", it is considered sunk. Record the #nails. 2nd trial is same except the design can, and does, change. The winner is the one who's total #nails is greatest in BOTH trials. You can weight the 2nd trial to make it more important or count ONLY the 2nd trial - up to you. Cool one-day activity. Kids realize that its the combination of keel shape (the depth of bottom of boat) AND bottom area that matter.


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