Kids can engage in vibrant and plentiful STEAM learning opportunities, even in the tub! Check out this awesome challenge and let the fun flow.

Build a Boat:

Materials

Aluminum foil square, recommended size: 6” x 6”
Weights: Pennies, marbles, beans, LEGO figures will work. You just need something consistent
Water
Pan, sink, bathtub

Do This!

Take a single sheet of aluminum foil, 6” x 6” works well, and fold it flat, pressing out all the air.
Continue folding until you can’t make it any smaller. Will this little square of foil sink or float? Try it!
You'll find that it sinks!

Now Try This!

Now unfold the foil and fold it into a boat shape. Add some weight. You can use pennies, marbles, or even toy figures. How many weights can it hold?
For an added challenge:
- Race your boats in the tub!
- See how many boats can you build and test in an hour?
- Guess the maximum load for your boat - were you close?

Talk About This!

"Can you redesign a foil boat to hold even more weight?"
"What’s the most weight it can hold?"

Engineers and designers use the Design Thinking Process to solve problems. This means that they think about the problem, the end user, design a possible solution, test it, then try again to see if they can improve.

Why This Works!
Why could the same piece of foil not only float, but hold even more weight? Water has a buoyant force that pushes up, while gravity is pushing down. By spreading out the weight of the foil (unfolding it) the water had more area to push up on, decreasing the density of the “boat.”

Don’t feel comfortable going into the concepts of buoyancy or density? That’s okay! Focus more on the engineering design process of empathizing, building, testing, and iterating based on what you’ve discovered.

At Starfire, student learn to solve problems like designers and engineers. They are given a problem and constraints. Then they use their imagination to come up with an answer!