Last week, as part of our Industrial Revolution topic, Oaks were challenged with making canal boats to hold as much 'coal' as possible. We realised that canal boats were only narrow so that they could fit down the waterway, so we were allowed to make wider boats. Our goal was to build as successful a boat as possible.
We had a budget of twenty pennies and could 'purchase' the materials we wished at a set price: 5p per sheet of A4 paper, 1p per paper clip and 1p per 5cm of masking tape. We had two attempts, the first of which was a chance to see what was successful and what was not. We then adapted and changed our designs based on our experiences and observations. As a class, our first boats held a total of just over 3kg; once we had changed them, our second attempts totalled 7.85kg! The winning boat was the one above created by Dylan, Tom and Abigail which held over 1.7kg with just two pieces of A4 and 50cm of masking tape. We were then allowed to bring in any resources we wanted to build our 'ultimate' junk-model boat. Here are a couple of our designs; congratulations to Beau and Tommy for the most successful boat holding over 8.5kg! Amazing!