It floats! Students battling for cardboard boating supremacy

Four teams from the Conseil scolaire catholique du Nouvel-Ontario (CSCNO) are in Waterloo this week to take part in the Elementary and Secondary Provincial Cardboard Boat Races.

Held March 4 and 5, the local teams are from École Ste-Marie (Azilda), École Saint-Joseph (Wawa) and École Alliance St-Joseph (Chelmsford).

They qualified for the Ontario championship by winning the top spots at the North-Eastern and North-Western Ontario Regional Elementary Cardboard Boat Race competition. On March 5, students from Blind River’s École secondaire catholique Jeunesse-Nord compete with top teams from across the province at the Secondary Provincial Cardboard Boat Races. This team was a silver medal winner at the regional level.

The competition, held by Skills Canada for students from Grades 7 and 8 and from high school, require each four-student teams to design and build a boat out of cardboard. Students are judged on the design and construction quality of their boats, teamwork, organization, security, creativity, team spirit as well as the speed and resistance of their vessels.

In addition to seeing the performance of their cardboard boats measured on water over a distance of 25 metres, the teams will take part in a load challenge to determine how long their boats can carry a maximum number of team-mates without sinking.