Using the engineering and project-based learning skills they have acquired at UTPB STEM Academy, high school students tried their luck at the annual boat races Thursday at the University of Texas Permian Basin pool.
Lines of parents gathered outside the fence in lawn chairs and standing to watch the event.
There were 48 boats in the race. Students had two days to build their cardboard and duct tape crafts and paddles. Teams had four members each with two in the boats.
There also was a teacher boat with a paddle wheel.
“For the materials, they’re only allowed to use cardboard and duct tape. And then there are certain parameters they have to follow when building the actual structure. So they can’t go more than two layers of cardboard. They cannot have air pockets built into their boats. The rest is up to their imagination,” Curriculum and Instruction Director Candi Sikes said.
The boats can’t be longer than seven feet or more than three feet wide. They have to fit through the door of the school building.
Karey Grametbaur, a teacher at STEM and an organizer of the races, said the boats can’t be longer than seven feet or more than three feet wide.
“It has to fit through the door of the school building. We built at the school. … One of the things that middle school didn’t have to have was paddles. Their paddles can’t be more than six layers (of cardboard) thick,” Grametbaur said.
Sikes said there are six heats, which are timed.
“There’s two obstacles; one, do they make it to what’s called the bulkhead in the middle … and then the eight fastest boats to the bulkhead then do a final championship round. The winner of that final round is deemed the high school boat champions for that year,” Sikes said.
In a tradition started last year, the winner of the middle school boat races comes back and races in the final heat with the high schoolers.
“So they kind of get introduced into the high school realm by coming back and racing our high schoolers,” Sikes said.
This is the eighth year the races have been held and Grametbaur said they learn something new every time.
“This year has been a challenge on cardboard. A lot of the people that we were getting cardboard from in the past, they’ve gone to more Earth friendly measures … storing their stuff and so they don’t have as much cardboard as they (used to). … Mr. (Jeff) Vann did a really good job of getting cardboard,” she said.
Because the cardboard wasn’t uniform this year, Grametbaur said they could bring their own, but it couldn’t be waxy or more than two layers thick.
Students don’t get to practice beforehand and they are supposed to follow the engineering process.
“It’s a really fun challenge,” 16-year-old junior Samuel Davidson said. “Also, I’m in the engineering pathway, so I think of it as a way to test my skills each year and what I’ve learned throughout engineering,” Davidson said.
He added that his teams usually do “all right.”
“Our paddles are our main issue, but our boat overall, it’s always been structurally well done,” Davidson said.
Callie Goodson, Quin Curry and Cassie Browning, all 15, won their heat and were victorious for the whole event.
“We didn’t think it was going to work. We didn’t even think we were going to qualify with these kinds of paddles much less win,” Goodson said.
Curry added that the paddles were unorthodox, but they worked. They looked like duct tape suction cups.
They were the middle school champions last year.
Annabelle Kirk, a 14-year-old ninth-grader, was on a boat that didn’t make it across, but said they enjoyed building their boat.
“We had a ton of fun,” Kirk said.
Carson Thayer and Hagen Hart, both 13-year-old seventh graders, were going to take part in the high school race this year.
“I feel a bit nervous because they’re bigger, but I think we have kind of a chance,” Thayer said.
As for strategy, Hart said they were going to paddle as hard as they could.
Seniors Brea Ball, Ireland Rogers and Alayna Aguirre knew they weren’t going win the whole thing, but they had fun anyway.
“Paddling is hard,” Ball said. “It’s tiring.”
