Aluminum Foil Boats

T-MINUS 2 DAYS TIL LAUNCH!

It's a lovely Saturday for a design thinking challenge! What better way to spend some time than by doing a design thinking challenge from the new curriculum so when you do it with your students, you can tell them about your own experiences! We picked a challenge that would be easy to do from home with basic things that you would have laying around the house. We modified the instructions from the curriculum to fit doing this at home instead of leading a class.

Overview:
This lesson serves as a prototyping experiment. It also teaches students about density and surface areas as it pertains to water. Students will build boats that need to hold as much payload(coins) as possible before sinking. They can rapidly build as many boats as possible to hold more weight.

Learning Objectives: 

• Learn about the concept of buoyancy and why things float
• Learn about surface area and how to distribute weight
• Learn that problem solving and design are iterative processes where solutions can constantly be refined.

Materials:

• Aluminum Foil (approx. 12in x 12in)
• One large plastic tub filled with water (we used a bathtub for this experiment at home)
• Coins, or other items that can be used as weights (at least 2 lbs)

• Additional items to make the challenge more difficult could include Paper cups, Saran Wrap, Paper clips.

Step 1: Design and Build

Take the aluminum foil and design a boat that you think will hold the most amount of coins/weight.

I got my brother to do this challenge with me. His boat is on the left.

Is it obvious that I just watched a show about the Vikings?

Step 2: Test

Place the boat into the water tub/ bathtub and start adding the coins or weights. Count the number of weights it takes for the boat to sink.

Brother putting his boat in the water

How much weight will it hold?

Step 3: New Prototype and Retest

After your boat has sunk, think of ways to improve the boat and build a new prototype. Test the new prototype and see if you get better results. If you want to make the challenge harder, try to add different materials like paper cups to the boat and see what you can come up with! 

How much weight were your boats able to hold? What insights did you find? We'd love to see your results!