A life jacket, some ingenuity, lots of cardboard and a roll of duct tape were all it took to participate in the second-annual Cardboard Boat Race.
Students from across the Shuswap and North Okanagan gathered in Salmon Arm on Thursday to build their boats and battle it out in the rec centre pool.
A total of 90 students from Shuswap, Carlin and Len Wood middle schools, from Grade 6 to 8, competed in the challenge.
“It’s about design thinking, it’s about team work, it’s about communication, it’s about solving problems,” said Mark Marino with School District 83.
“This is our second-annual event that we hope is an every year thing.”
The cardboard boat has to be able to carry at least one person who then paddles madly to the finish line.
“Some boats will float, some will sink, but the objective is to make it from one end to the next,” added Marino.
Rene Ragetli with Skills Canada was on hand to oversee the event and promote careers in skilled trades and technologies.
“This is an early influencer,” said Ragetli. “We give students the opportunity to experience what it feels like to design and build things, and test it all in the same day.”
“We didn’t know what we were going to do at first,” said competitor Brooklyn Davidson, Grade 8 from Shuswap Middle School. “We had a diagram, but I forgot it so we winged it. Fold, don’t cut, we were told.”
“We’re going to put the in the water and race them. We are going to paddle with our arms,” said Kira Johnson, teammate of Davidson. “We are going to go to town!”
Len Wood student Dylan Hay had some closing thoughts after his team’s boat sank before the finish line.
“We reinforced it with duct tape along the bottom, but we forgot to reinforce the walls, the rest of the cardboard. So, as soon as our swimmer got in, he hit the water and it just collapsed and sank,” said Hay. “Next time I would reinforce the walls.”
The previously mentioned team from Shuswap (Brooklyn Davidson, Kira Johnson, Teagen Mazotta and Luke Belle) ended up taking second place, falling just behind classmates Dylan Bland, Mackenzie Johnson, Claire Van Bergeryk, Skyler Lille, Henry Belle who took gold.
The bronze medal was bestowed to the team from Tappen, B.C. – Carlin students Jack Owens, Heiko Haase, Blake Ruff, Wyatt Mullins and Cyrus Goertz.
A total of 18 teams competed in the event organized by the School District 83 Career Department with help from Skills Canada.
