Week 4

All of the materials needed for construction have been ordered and the boat is ready to assemble.  Labs procedures have been created to test materials the boat is going to be made of.  More calculations will be made to figure out the best possible combination of materials and dimensions for the boat.  Construction will begin this week and testing of the completed boat will be done as soon as possible.  We will continue to conduct research on all the materials.

Week 3

This week we decided on the design and dimensions we would be using for our boat and constructed a drawing in ProEngineer. We also researched what kind of netting we wanted to use for the sides of the boat and purchased it from the internet.  We made a list of all other materials needed for the construction of the boat.  We will purchase them on the day of construction.  This coming week we intend to research the other materials we will be using and design tests on them to find out their properties.  We will hopefully be able to start our test this week.

Plastic Sheeting Purchased for the Cardboard

Netting to contain the water bottles

Week 2

In week 2, we started our project overview, we finished many of the sections and assigned the others to each other to do throughout the week.  We researched other boats constructed of recycled materials and we researched the need for disaster relief rafts.  Please see the project design page on the side.

An example of a boat made from recycled material

Week 1

In week one we decided on a project that goes along with the sustainability ideas presented in class. Our goal is to create a boat that can be made from common household items that are typically in excess. We would like to create the boat out of 100% recycled material such as cardboard, plastic wrap, and water bottles.  Our initial design that we have come up with would mimic a platoon boat in that the water bottles would be contained in a net on two sides of a raft keeping it afloat.  We are using these materials because they are easily assemble so if a disaster occurs such as a hurricane, people would be able to help themselves escape instead of helplessly waiting for someone else to come save them.