Phunday #3

What's more phun than a cardboard boat?



That's a boat, you ask? Indeed it is.



Probably not the most efficient design, but a novel idea for steering. The QCElite Robotics Team's boat has no front or back. Only the driver (not the boat) faces a different direction to change direction of motion. We'll see how well it works on Wednesday. (This links to an UPDATE of Friday's post about the regatta, lunch, and movie.)

The plan is to bring the winning boat from two years ago, too - we know how well that one works. It'll be fun if the two get to race each other.

And the physics club helped build this boat, indirectly. Not just by our monetary donation, either. As they were finishing up the boat on Saturday, they noticed that the propellers would push the water the wrong direction, so the boat would travel the opposite direction the driver was facing. They suggested turning the propellers around, but I saved them the trouble. This is a lesson we learned when the fan blades on the club hovercraft were blowing up instead of down: turning over a propeller or fan blade does not change the direction it pushes. Fan/propeller blades are symmetric under rotation by 180^o around an axis along the length of the blade.