Making a sailboat out of homemade materials!?

Question

Hi,

I need to make a sailboat for school here are all the guidelines
link: http://www.sd44.org/education/components/scrapbook/default.php?sectiondetailid=3303&sc_id=1189124153

Please tell me wat to make the sailboat out of, lightest material.

Please click on link

Answer 1

How, you make your sailboat depends, of course, on your skills as a builder.

For lightness, paper is your best bet. The simple origami boat design could easily be modified with a sail and keel. Coat it with a thin layer of spray paint to make it stiff and waterproof.

The boat will need a keel fin for stability. This can be made by cutting out a playing card, or something.

Since your boat is breath powered, I'd say, the smaller and lighter, the better--- but not so small that breathing too hard will easily capsize it!

Just a few suggestions. Good luck,
~W.O.M.B.A.T.

Answer 2

That part about making it out of materials found around your house worries me. Balsa wood is great but I don't usually see much of that around a house. There is also foam plastic but again that is tough to find at home.

here is my suggestion instead. Bend a frame out of wire coat hangers from the cleaners. Then take some of the thin plastic clothing wrappers that the cleaners put your cleaned shirts in and wrap that onto the wire frame to make a hull. Now you have a hull that is a coat hanger and a piece of very lightweight plastic - that is as light as can be. You could attach an upright piece of coat hanger for the mast and put a giant thin plastic sail on it. Big sail with light weight! If you need a keel to hold it upright throw in some more of that coat hanger wire at the bottom.

Try something like that. I don't think it has been tried before and while the rest of the class is messing with shaping wood you are ahead on ingenuity and construction speed.

Answer 3

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