The first week of summer was the only week that we didn’t travel somewhere out of town. Instead we had Daddy engineering camp with our friend Abby. The challenge was to create a water craft that could be rowed about 100 yards from a boat put in at Algonkian Park down to a floating dock.
I had saved cardboard from the warehouse and bought 6 rolls of duct tape. I had no idea how much duct tape one could use in making a cardboard boat. I think I ended up buying around $75 of duct tape.
We learned about water displacement – in order for the boat to float it must be able to carry as much weight as the boat itself and it’s passengers. A quick eyeball test was to figure out how many gallon jugs would fit inside the boat. A gallon of water weighs 8 pounds, if we could fit more gallon jugs inside the boat then weight of the passengers, then we knew it would float.
Both boats had plenty of water displacement, but Skylar and Abby’s boat suffered a critical failure when Abby put too much weight on one foot to adjust herself, thereby poking a hole in the side of the raft where the sidewall met the floor. It wasn’t long until they were under water 🙁
Nevertheless, we had a ton of fun and maybe we learned a little something as well. Parker’s boat on the other hand made it all the way to the dock, and then the rowed it all the way back to the boat launch. Nice job Parky!
