Float Your Boat
MATH REFLECTION
3 things I learned:
One thing that I learned was buoyancy. I wasn't really familiar with that topic before, and didn't really know about it, but while doing this project, I got to learn more about it and its relation with density. Also, I learned about the VSF (Volume Scale Factor) and the LSF (Linear Scale Factor). Before I learned these things, I would just calculate everything based on one of the sides that I chose and I would calculate it by the ratio. I failed a lot doing that, but it was the only method that I knew, so I had to stick with it. And sometimes, it didn't work the way I wanted it to, and turned out weird. However, after learning the VSF and the LSF, I learned what was the best choice for our side lengths and the size of our boat. Basically, life became much more simple :) The third thing that I learned was the importance of covering holes. Around January, a ninth grader asked me if we started the "Float Your Boat" project yet. I told that ninth grader that we didn't start it yet, and she said that I should remember to cover up the holes completely with tape whatsoever. So taking that advice, after we had taped the overall shape of the boat, I told my group members that we should tape the holes first. We taped the holes thoroughly before we started to tape the bottom of the boat so that it wouldn't have water soak through as I was getting across the pool. Our boat was pretty big, so we didn't have enough to tape all of the sides of the boat. However, on the day of the floating, we realized that it was okay, since we had covered up the holes. Other groups that hadn't covered up all of their holes well and just taped the sides couldn't get their boat across the pool because water soaked in their boat through the holes. But our boat wasn't even wet, for our holes were closed well, so I didn't get wet at all.
2 things that were difficult:
One thing that was difficult was choosing the VSF. Our objective of this project was to make the smallest boat possible that would go across the width of the pool. So we tried to stick with our VSF increased by 10 percent, but that didn't seem to work because I would barely fit in there, and I would have to kneel, which would make the boat sink faster because more weight is concentrated on one place. I didn't want that because it was too risky, although we had to make the smallest boat. Since I was the cargo, I told my group members from the position of the cargo that we should make the boat reasonably big, because spreading my weight was the important part. But along the way, we made the ratio too big, so the boat became way bigger than expected. Another thing that was difficult was making a sturdy boat with such limited material. We only had two rolls of tape and one knife, which meant that we couldn't possibly save time by using two knifes, and we also couldn't tape the whole boat, which was our plan.
1 thing I learned that would be useful to my future career as a dentist:
Dentists have to make fake teeth for some patients, such as patients who need fake teeth or implants. By doing this project, I was able to know the correct way of finding the VSF and the LSF and therefore, I will be able to enlarge or minimize models with the right calculations.
3 things I learned:
One thing that I learned was buoyancy. I wasn't really familiar with that topic before, and didn't really know about it, but while doing this project, I got to learn more about it and its relation with density. Also, I learned about the VSF (Volume Scale Factor) and the LSF (Linear Scale Factor). Before I learned these things, I would just calculate everything based on one of the sides that I chose and I would calculate it by the ratio. I failed a lot doing that, but it was the only method that I knew, so I had to stick with it. And sometimes, it didn't work the way I wanted it to, and turned out weird. However, after learning the VSF and the LSF, I learned what was the best choice for our side lengths and the size of our boat. Basically, life became much more simple :) The third thing that I learned was the importance of covering holes. Around January, a ninth grader asked me if we started the "Float Your Boat" project yet. I told that ninth grader that we didn't start it yet, and she said that I should remember to cover up the holes completely with tape whatsoever. So taking that advice, after we had taped the overall shape of the boat, I told my group members that we should tape the holes first. We taped the holes thoroughly before we started to tape the bottom of the boat so that it wouldn't have water soak through as I was getting across the pool. Our boat was pretty big, so we didn't have enough to tape all of the sides of the boat. However, on the day of the floating, we realized that it was okay, since we had covered up the holes. Other groups that hadn't covered up all of their holes well and just taped the sides couldn't get their boat across the pool because water soaked in their boat through the holes. But our boat wasn't even wet, for our holes were closed well, so I didn't get wet at all.
2 things that were difficult:
One thing that was difficult was choosing the VSF. Our objective of this project was to make the smallest boat possible that would go across the width of the pool. So we tried to stick with our VSF increased by 10 percent, but that didn't seem to work because I would barely fit in there, and I would have to kneel, which would make the boat sink faster because more weight is concentrated on one place. I didn't want that because it was too risky, although we had to make the smallest boat. Since I was the cargo, I told my group members from the position of the cargo that we should make the boat reasonably big, because spreading my weight was the important part. But along the way, we made the ratio too big, so the boat became way bigger than expected. Another thing that was difficult was making a sturdy boat with such limited material. We only had two rolls of tape and one knife, which meant that we couldn't possibly save time by using two knifes, and we also couldn't tape the whole boat, which was our plan.
1 thing I learned that would be useful to my future career as a dentist:
Dentists have to make fake teeth for some patients, such as patients who need fake teeth or implants. By doing this project, I was able to know the correct way of finding the VSF and the LSF and therefore, I will be able to enlarge or minimize models with the right calculations.