It was sink or swim at Waubonsie’s 3rd Annual Cardboard Regatta.
As part of the calculus three class, students designed and built their own cardboard boats to race in the school’s pool.
“We spend a lot of time talking about density and mass and volume and we can compute all of those things. So actually one of those kids built his boat and then figured out how much water displacement the boat would produce, and then built the walls that high so it wouldn’t sink,” explained AJ Ruopoli, a math teacher at Waubonsie.
Over a two week period, and in celebration of the end of finals, the students built the boats and held their breath to determine if they would stay afloat.
Despite the students’ hard work, not all made it to the finish line.
But it was the team of seniors Jimmy and Andrew who took home the regatta trophy.
“We had high hopes coming in, but after seeing some of the other boats they also looked great, but we just kept pushing it the entire time and it was nice realizing we won at the very end,” said Andrew Bridgeman and Jimmy Shehee of the winning team.
The winning team is going on to study computer science and engineering in college.
Naperville News 17’s Alyssa Bochenek reports.
