Cardboard Boat Regatta
For this project my team and I designed and constructed a two man vessel made from cardboard. The design was supposed to be able to stay afloat long enough for us to paddle 200 yards around an island. For this project we were limited to only using cardboard to make the boat and the propulsion system. In order to connect the pieces of cardboard we used a couple of caulking compounds and some Great Stuff expanding foam. For our design, we chose a hull with a flat bottom and sloping sides. The front of the boat was also pointed at an angle so the boat could cut through the water more easily. Also for added support, we glued some carpet tubes on the sides. The carpet tubes on the sides prevented the boat from sagging in the middle and "Taco-ing up" as my engineering teacher explained. For the propulsion system, my team and I decided to go with kayak design paddles. This design would allow us to constantly be pushing through the water and help counter act some of the over-steering that may occur. Over-steering is what happens when one person is paddling too strong on one side and the boat starts to turn one way or another, because of the ability to paddle on either side of the boat, this shouldn't happen.
Now as for the competition, our boat didn't quite make it all 200 yards around the lake. Once both people got in the boat the floor started to bow upward and the seams where we put tape started to fail one by one. After the first seal broke, the boat started to take on water and the strain became too much for the others. We were able to make it around the island on the lake and paddle fairly successfully till the strain became too much and the ends of each paddle broke off. In the picture at the bottom right, it shows what it looked like when the boat was completely underwater and we were still sitting in it.