LEGO SCIENCE! FLOAT OR SINK?

I thought I would share with you a lovely game the children enjoyed. We were all playing with the Lego and somehow we all ended up making boats! Kenzie had a kit with a pirate ship that I was making and Brendan was using his Hovercraft set to make a little boat! As we chatted Brendan said he wanted to test them out in the sink to see if they would float. He said he needed high sides and to make sure there were no gaps for the water to get in.

The boats were completed and they all took their maiden voyage in the kitchen sink. Brendans boat floated beautifully but Kenzies tipped over and sunk. We talked about why Kenzies did not float and how his design differed from Brendans. We looked at the surface area of the bottom of the boats. Brendans was wider. (not sure they fully understood this concept). We then talked about how Kenzies had cannons on and when the boat tipped a bit, the holes for the cannons let the water in. We also said we thought Kenzies was not very evenly balance.

Kenzie and I re designed a boat, taking in to account all we had observed. We chose a bigger base and taller sides with no holes! SUCCESS!!!

Brendan decided to try and make a submarine and so needed it to sink. This was harder than it sounds as the plastic of the lego kept it up even if it tipped.He also thought he just needed to use something that had holes in it and that would be enough to make it sink. So we talked about something to weigh it down and how we could create some thing under the submarine that could carry a pebble, to help it sink. This took a few designs but he got there in the end!
Kenzie even gave it a go too! Still with the Pirate theme!

Amazing what you can learn from an afternoon of Lego!! Really enjoyed ourselves!