Hovercraft STEM Challenge!

Today, we had Jess as our substitute teacher. We suprisingly got the opportunity to build a hovercraft with a limited amount of materials: a balloon, a CD, and a push/pull bottle cap. A balloon hovercraft is a classic, fun science project that demonstrates friction and air pressure using simple household items.

We are learning to follow certain instructions so that we could have a positive outcome. Here was our challenge description: “Your engineering team has been tasked with building a working prototype of a frictionless transport vehicle (a hovercraft). Using only a single CD, a bottle cap, and a balloon, you must design a vehicle that can lift its own weight off the ground and travel across a designated zone. Your goal is to maximize your hover time and distance while maintaining a perfectly stable flight.”

During this challenge, I went into a team with Ruth & Pantaleon, it was exciting producing this product while using incredible teamwork. We first hot glued the bottle cap on top of the hole on the CD. Pantaleon then blew the balloon and proceeded to put the mouth on the bottle cap. From there, we let go of the balloon. It glided in on the tiles, twisting and turning. I liked the fact that it went on for about 20 seconds.

Highlights and constructive criticism: We did well in constructing our product especially when it came to improving it. However, our hovercraft had the tendancy to spin in circles so we could possibly improve on adding more things to keep it stablized.

I am looking forward to doing more STEM projects in the future!