Water Transportation Report/reflection

Muayad Abukanan

4/25/15

Water Transportation Report/Reflection

A1, Mr. Mehr

        Once receiving the rubric for constructing a sailboat; I immediately thought that this project would be challenging because we were asked to “…design and create the fastest sailboat possible”. The most challenging aspect was that constructing a sailboat can fail from the beginning by cutting the wood unevenly. This project had three components to it which were preliminary design, construction, and testing. The preliminary design consisted of three sketches which have to be checked on before starting to construct. Furthermore, the construction consisted of the machine work in other words the hull, symmetry, and proportions that contain the sails, hull, keel, and other parts.  Lastly, the testing includes function, speed, and tournament rank. Considering all these requirements and specifics, I felt this project to be very stressful and challenging.

        Throughout the duration of the construction of the sailboat many concepts and lessons were learned. First and foremost, taking as much wood as you can from the hull would be exceedingly beneficial to the competitor for the reason that it takes weight from the sailboat and can give it more speed. I also noticed that sanding the sides and the bottom of the hull would be extremely helpful because it would give the sailboat a roundish shape and figure. Moreover, I honestly didn’t know that the keel was very important until my sailboat kept flipping to its side and wouldn’t stop flipping till I made a bigger keel. Also, another major message I learned was that actually putting nails and weights on the keel would assist. Before placing weights on the keel my sailboat wouldn’t move an inch. As soon as I started inserting weights towards the bottom of the keel my sailboat started to improve and start moving. Many lessons weren’t learned until seeing what they could do in your eyes.

        The first step in creating the sailboat was illustrating three annotated sketches. Sketching wasn’t that difficult because I got examples from the internet. Choosing the wood piece was the second step and it wasn’t that hard. My criterion was getting a piece of wood that doesn’t have that much defects. In the beginning of day one of construction, I was frightened and scared to use the bandsaw because I thought a small mistake can destroy the whole project. After, seeing many students cutting there hulls and shaping them I relaxed and thought to myself that it’s not going to be that bad. Once, I cut the hull and sanded it to the figure I wanted I got passed the most freighting stage. What helped me the most was researching hull designs and seeing which ones were the most effective to my project. After, finishing sanding the hull, it was time to drill holes and take weight out of the hull. This step took the most duration to do due to two reasons first of all the drilling takes plenty of time and second of all the drill press machines were always full of activity. Afterward, I had to set up the sails, mast, rudder, and keel. Out of all the parts these components took the least time to finish and the easiest to do. The sails had to be proportioned with the mast because in my perspective they correspond with each other and affect each other. Moreover, the mast was already measured in my sketches, so I just had to cut the wood. In my point of view the rudder didn’t help my sailboat or made it fail, it was just there, therefore I just took it off. The keel; the most effective and significant part for the reason that I witnessed it fail my sailboat in the beginning and towards the end it made  my sailboat function and move. In my viewpoint the bigger the keel is and the more weight it has the better the sailboat is. After, finishing it was time to pretest and test.