ECHO, Leahy Center for Lake Champlain

Can you change the shape of tin foil to make it float?

How many pennies (or pebbles) can you keep afloat on your foil boat?

*To explore displacement, fill a cup all the way to the very top. Then drop in an object that sinks! The water that spills out of the top of the cup is displaced. If you want to learn more, try investigating buoyancy and density.

: Boats can only float if they weigh less than the amount of water that they displace, or push away. Bigger boats can displace more water than smaller boats.

: What shapes of boats work the best? Can you build a boat out of different materials?

the Challenge: Design a tin foil boat and see how many pennies or pebbles it can carry.

Your Design: What shape are boats usually? Which boat shape do you think displaces the most water?

 a Prototype: A prototype is like a first try – see if you can build what you imagined.

Your Creation: Did your boat float on its own? How many pennies or pebbles could you add before it sank? What changes did you see as you added more weight?

 Your Design: Make changes to your boat so that it will hold even more pennies. Test out different shapes and sizes – could you try making it taller? Wider?

Float Your Boat

Can you design a cart that can carry a metal spoon down a zipline?

Down the Zipline

Mighty Tower: Can you build a tower out of newspaper?

Mighty Tower

Can you create a marble run that takes a marble more than 15 seconds to complete?

Slow Marbles

Can you build a tool to pick up a ping pong ball using only one hand?

The Scoop

Can you design a container that keeps your crash test object safe?

Survive the Stairs

Can you design a contraption that launches a pom pom all the way across the room? 

Launch, Fling, Fly

Make a Maze

Can you design a sail that harnesses the power of wind to move your cardboard boat?

Sail Away

Can you create your own rocket launching station and an awesome aircraft to go with it?

Rocket Launch 

Can you design a fish that doesn’t sink or float to the surface?

Build a Fish

Introduction to the Engineering Design Process 

You can try these engineering design challenges with materials you might already have! The goal is to get you thinking like an engineer with problem-solving and having some hands-on, learning fun. Each challenge has a list of suggested materials, background science concepts, and some options to extend the challenge. We also walk you through the steps of the Engineering Design Process (define the problem, plan a solution, create a prototype, test your design, and improve your creation) with guiding questions to help along the way.

Resource Kits

Object Library

Museums

Engineer It! at home

Float Your Boat

Background Knowledge