Week 24 Reflection

To tell you the truth, it's some what hard for me to talk about the cardboard boat regatta because I was so disappointed with mine in the pool. It was literally a 'shipwreck' in the pool after I worked so hard on its creation. The main cause with most of the boats was not having the correct amount of water displaced in order to float. This resulted in the boats sinking. In my boat's case, I don't feel the force of two people in the boat was distributed equally throughout the boat. Our boat was floating, but it was extremely tippy and it ended up flipping is out of the boat shortly after beginning to row. I feel that is the boat covered more surface area and was both longer and wider, it would have resolved this issue.

Despite my disappointing experience, team physics displayed some really awesome boats that did extremely well in the pool. The boats that did well displaced the equal amount of water as the force of the two rowers inside. Then, if the water and the boat exert the same amount of force, then the boat floats. It acts just like a force pair. In addition, knowing that the lowest center of gravity is the most stable, a boat captain could figure out how to position the rowers (on their knees, sitting down, ect.).

Like I said, I'm super bummed about my boat because I worked so hard on it and spent so much time hoping to ensure success in the water. Both Jenna and I got in the boat completely fine and our boat was floating as it carried us. The major issue was that it wasn't stable and flipped after we began rowing. The boat really needed to be wider to help steady it and help prevent any tipping. The boat was lined with two pieces of cardboard on the bottom and had cardboard tubing to add extra strength. Unfortunately, the flipping killed our chances, which is disappointing because I don't feel that the boat is a clear reflection of my knowledge of physics.

Although I wasn't able to row that much, from observing the other groups I found that it was most efficient to have one rower on each side to keep the boat straight. However, the rowing of each side needs to be equal in force to keep the boat traveling forward in a straight path. The time to have unequal forces on each side was when the rowers were turning the boat at the end of the pool. Depending upon the direction, one person had to row harder than the other.

Despite being disappointed, it was an awesome and exciting experience and I can't wait to watch again next year :)