This afternoon, Primary 4/5 were very busy designing ‘unsinkable’ boats. We were each given a 2l bottle (boat), 2 bottle ends (bulk heads) and enough weights to half submerge our boat in the water. We had to work together in our groups to find the best place for our watertight compartments and the best distribuation of weight.
Every group had to ensure that their boat was level in the water with the bottle top half submerged. When our hull was breached (bottle lid removed), we used ipads to time how long it took our ship to sink. Our results showed that ships sink faster with no bulkheads. We also discovered that if the there were too many weights at one end of the boat, it caused our breaced hull to rise above the water level giving us false results.
One group discovered that placing the bulkheads at either end of the ship with the weight evenly distributed was the most effective in allowing our boat to stay afloat.
