Boat Regatta Project

Throughout my high school career, I have taken part in many different group projects, as our school encourages teamwork and collaboration. However, the one that sticks out most in my memory was the infamous Boat Regatta project in Honors Physics during sophomore year.

The Boat Regatta was one of the biggest projects we had to do in Honors Physics. The project involved teams of four learners working together to create a full sized cardboard boat which would be suitable for racing in the neighboring school’s pool. Teams were very limited as to what materials they were allowed to use; for example, no sealants were allowed except for hot glue. Also, materials needed to be water friendly since we couldn’t leave a mess behind in the pool or get the water dirty.

Initially I thought this project wouldn’t be too difficult, estimating it would only take a few days, maybe a weekend. However, things went less than stellar as the project’s wheels got in motion. Early on into the project, I found out that two of our group members weren’t available to work on the project during any of the weekends we had planned out. This meant that it would just be myself and one other group member building the boat entirely by ourselves.

Fortunately, my colleague and I were able to finish the boat in time without any help from the rest of our group. The other group members did some paperwork we needed before turning in the project, but it was definitely not an equivalent amount of work. This project was a good example of taking responsibility for other people and picking up the slack when others don’t put in their share of work; you can’t always rely on others, but you can always rely on yourself.