Our goal in Science 10, was to build a boat made out of just aluminum foil, toothpicks, tape, and marshmallows and see how many pennies our boats could hold in water. Our (Me, Sara, Clare and Aden) boat (named Bo-at) carried an impressive (but not the best) amount of 80 pennies.

We decided to build the opposite of a boat, and think scientifically. We thought that if a boat had more surface area, then the boat will hold more pennies because there is more room for them to be placed. Like I said, our boat could carry 80 pennies because we had a large surface area and small walls to make it stronger. The winning boat (Sally) was in the shape of a bowl, and we thought that it held the most because of its strong foundation to prevent it from sinking. The other boats had some crazy designs too, but all had obvious flaws.

In the end, we found out that boats that are deeper and have higher walls that are thicker help the boat stay afloat with pennies. Our hypothesis was kind of supported, since we predicted that a larger surface area would carry more pennies (which was true) but our lack of thick walls made the boat sink. We were thinking too much about the surface area, that we totally forgot about all the other components of a boat. Next time, we could definitely try to make the boat thicker on the bottom and on the sides.

Photo of “Bo-at”: