Boat Design for 7th Grade Science Fair Projects

Design science fair projects head to the lake...

Nicholas
Grade 7

Objectives/Goals

The objective is to determine which boat design is most hydrodynamic.

Methods/Materials

Eight wood blocks served as boats. With them I did three different tests: bow testing, stern testing (I used the same boat I used for bow testing but turned them around), and weight testing. In bow and stern tests, I adjusted the weighting of the boats so that they all had the same weight.
I used four - eight foot half pipes filled with water for my boats to float down. I attached a string to the eye screw at the bow or stern of each boat. The string was connected to a washer used as a weight to pull the boats down the trough. The weights were dropped off a crossbar at the end of the troughs. The troughs were nine feet off the ground so I could use gravity to pull the weights that pulled the boats.

Results

In the bow test, the overall fastest boat was boat #2 which had a rounded design. In the stern testing, boat # 1 was the fastest. It had a square stern design. In weight testing, boat # 1 was the fastest. It was the lightest of the weighted boats.

Conclusions/Discussion

During my bow and stern testing I discovered that density became a variable in my experiment and caused the boats that had more area cut away when they were shaped, to sink lower in the water and one to drag on the bottom. This proved my hypothesis incorrect. In weight testing though, my hypothesis was proved correct and the lightest boat moved the fastest.  3rd party site