Land Yacht

Aim: To make a wind racer that will travel a set distance the fastest.

Equipment:

1. Wooden trolley
2. 1 metre of paper
3. Cardboard
4. Tape
5. Metal rod

Method:

1. Screw the pole onto the trolley.
2. Tape strips of cardboard onto the base of the pole to form the base of the sail.
3. Cut out a large piece of paper and fold it over the pole to form the sail.
4. Tape it all together and ensure that it's stable and secure.
5. Decorate the sail and name the sail.
6. Use a leaf blower to blow the vessel as far as possible.
7. Measure the distance and speed the vessel travels.

Results:

During the racing of our land yacht, we achieved a distance of 1.9 metres in 13.5 seconds. This means that the yacht had a velocity of 0.14m/s-1.

Discussion:

While we raced the yacht itself, we did not keep it at a constant speed, because of the lack of support in our sail, it blew forward and didn't catch the necessary wind to propel it forward at the desired velocity. The unbalanced forces that constantly acted upon the yacht did not assist, had it gone any further, it would have likely tipped forward. This would've happened due to the heavyweight of the metal pole. As said, we did not have enough support in our sail, this would have been solved by putting more cardboard into the sail to prevent it from blowing in every direction and instead, staying in place.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, many of the problems we found with the sail we created had to do with the design of it and how much time we spent on artistic developments. We focused rather on the creative award that was being given, instead of the distance and time award.