Paddle Boat Investigation: an Educational STEM Project-Based Learning Experience

This project is a way to leave up from the Sail Boat Investigation without spending a lot of money on supplies. This investigation focuses on the engineering process, collecting data and observation, and adjusting the design to increase its speed and reliability in design.

Objectives:

· Describe how both potential and kinetic energy contributes to the overall design of the vessel and its speed.

· Use the total paddle area, paddle position, and weight of the whole paddle boat to develop a design that will travel the distance of the stream table.

· Design variables to decrease the time needed to execute the investigation and to keep the investigation at a simple design and engineering challenge.

I attached an investigation document to help guide students through the process. I have leveled this project up to high schools and had them develop a way to steer the paddle boat remotely. I have students use TinkerCAD to develop a model and simulate it in Fushion 360.

Supplies

Possible Materials:

· Rubber bands

· Masking Tape

· Scissors

· Basic Hull

· Cay

· Paper

· Craft Sticks

· Hot glue gun and glue sticks

· Stream table or sort of water container to test boat design

Step 1: Investigation

Student Introduction:

Steam-driven paddleboats worked much like how you peddle your bike, but rather than using your legs to turn the gears to make the back wheel turn, it used a steam-powered piston. Water is boiled and forced to make a piston move back and forth. The paddle boat in this investigation doesn’t require steam to run it, but the same scientific principles that determine the boat's speed still apply. There are a load of variables in this investigation and as a researcher, you will need to learn to adjust one variable at a time to determine which has the greatest effect on the speed of your paddle boat.

Task: 

1. You must use the material provided to design, build, and test your paddle boat. Work with your class to build background information so that you have the correct vocabulary to use when describing what is happening in your investigation.

2. Once you have the background and material ready, you will need to present your ideas to you teacher and fellow students to determine if your understanding of the content, your model, and your investigation process makes logical sense to proceed.

3. Proceed to collect materials, build your model, and test.

4. Analyze, present finding to peers, and draft an essay discussing how your sailboat design uses the best science to bring goods to market the quickest and the safest.

Step 2: Build and Design

Developing strong structure support around the paddle is the key to creating a paddle that functions well. As you wind the paddle to make the paddle boat go, it also pulls the sides of the paddle boat together. Make sure that students put some kind of support; otherwise, they will twist the rubber band, which will snap the styrofoam side of the paddle boat.

Designing the paddle boat can have many variations. Most students will create a traditional-looking paddle boat. Some students will get creative and put the paddle in the front of the boat, or some will attempt to place a paddle at the front and the back.

The paddle itself can be a single rectangle shape, and others will do the "X" shape of some variation of it. The best design is a balance between the amount of energy in the rubber band and the size of the propeller. If the paddle is too small , the paddle will spin really fast but won't go anywhere. The opposite with a large paddle will pull too much water and be unable to spin.

With fifth graders, I have had them document the size of the propeller by calculating its area and recording how the propeller spun, and calculating the average speed of the paddle boat. We use this data to support or provide evidence as to why that propeller design was better.