Boat Measurement and Strength by: Jeremy

My topic for KIC is boats. I got my question by reading Laura ( 's article. I choose this :opic because I like working with clay.

My question is "Why do long boats carry more cargo than wide, tall, or short boats?" I thought of my question by looking through KIC magazine. I started reading Laura Cole's article and it grabbed my attention. Her article was good that is how I got my question.

The first boat was built thousands of years ago. This information is from the book Amazing Boats. People noticed that certain materials like wood and reed floated on water. The parts of a )oat are the back, which is the stern, the front is the bow and the storage place is the port. Boats have a lot of gadgets. Boats cannot turn very sharp. That is why the Titanic sank. Boats are floating objects that can carry 100-500 passengers. They can be made out of wood, iron, metal, elastic, and other materials. The biggest boat ever made was the Titanic. Boats work by steam md coal engines. The propellers make the boats move,

To answer my question, I first made my boats, they saw how much they could carry. Later, I tried making round boats, but mostly they had too much weight on one side. Finally, I made one big boat. I have a theory. I think long boats can balance better. Some of the cargo my partner, Luke Brady, and I used were marbles, paper clips, popsicle sticks, about a 15.00 gram weight, and other little weights that weighed about 5.00 grams, pennies, rock pieces, and more. The biggest boat could carry everything we had. It was about 2 inches wide and 4 inches long.

We discovered that cargo can weigh more than the boat itself. The weight of the cargo was way over 100 grams. The boat itself was 100 grams. I learned that it doesn't matter how big the boat is, it matters how well the boat is built.

Something next year's students should try is experiments with bigger and stronger boats. Another idea is to create a sail boat and see how well it works. Some things I wanted to try is better and wooden boats. A question you should try is "What kind of clay boat carries the most weight?"

Bibliography Lincoln, Margarett. Amazing Boats. Italy: Alfred A Knopf, Inc. 1992