Buoyancy: How to best construct a boat out of a small square of aluminum foil.?

Question

If given 1 square foot of foil, how do you best form the foil into a boat-like shape that will hold the most weight in it's hall when placed in water?

http://www97.intel.com/en/ProjectDesign/UnitPlanIndex/FloatThatBoat/boat_foil.htm
http://www.new-sng.com/foilboat.cfm
http://pbskids.org/zoom/activities/sci/boatsafloat.html

Answer 1

All I could find was this "The best designs are flat barges with small sides." http://www.nps.gov/miss/forteachers/brjralumboat.htm

I built two designs, that looked good, with 1 sqft of heavy duty foil. One was an Origamie Box whcih held 0.74 pounds. Two was a cone shaped whcih held 0.70 pounds.

How to make:
1)http://hobbies.expertvillage.com/videos/origami-box.htm or
2)http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AvShMMlhnKPVwubr0QJQy0wjzKIX?qid=20070130163736AAU3XFo

Answer 2

Design the foil shape to displace the most water. This shape will then hold the most weight. No sure what shape that is.

Answer 3

You need to try to maximize two things at once:

1. The volume contained within the boat
2. The height of the walls above the bottom of the boat.

The shape that gives you the best of both of these is a hemisphere, floating concave-up, with the entire edge of the hemisphere just above the water level. Of course, the slightest imbalance, and it will roll to the side, allowing water to get in.

Answer 4

a sphere contains the largest volume for the smallest surface area, therefore you want to form a hemisphere. That will create the largest possible buoyancy force.

Answer 5

Manipulate the foil into a concave form, it will float.