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Twenty-six Edgewood Middle School students are making eight teams to compete in Saturday’s Cardboard Regatta Race at Canal Days in Winona Lake.
Project Lead The Way teacher Abbi Richcreek said she’s coached students for four or five years to make boats for the event.
Students started building their boats on the second day of school and have been working every day after school for about two hours.
For the project, Richcreek said the cardboard was donated. Medtronic also donated $1,000 for duct tape.
Students participate in the Cardboard Regatta Race because Edgewood is a STEM-certified school and students like working with their hands and having a product to display and test.
“And especially when the community is involved, we like to be present to be able to show some of the skills we are able to do,” Richcreek said.
With some students, sometimes their boats sink and then they learn what they need to do next year. Out of the nine students that have previous experience building boats for the race, some of their boats weren’t as successful as they would have wanted, so they came back to make them better, Richcreek said.
Some of the students have won in past year “and have done really and they want to continue this.”
Richcreek said failure is also a way for students to learn “and just being here is a great way into showing that you’re trying things, whether it’s new or old and I feel like they enjoy being together in their team and doing the hands-on learning.”
Luke Macke said this is the second year he’s participated in the regatta. The first time he was in the race, he did it on his own two years ago. The first time he said he did pretty well and didn’t sink.
Macke said he was really excited to build something so he decided to build the boat at Edgewood. He hopes he does better than two years ago.
Macke said he learned the first time to create the boat with things that would make it slower. This year, he’s helped teammates Gavin Mort, Michael Kane and Isaiah Powers to make their boat named Duct Taped Dragons more aerodynamic. He’s learned what he’s done wrong to make their boat design better.
This is also Christopher Sanchez’s second year building boats for the race, both at Edgewood. He said it’s pretty fun designing a boat and riding it across the water.
Sanchez said last year his team won first place in the race. He said learned to add more support to his boat because his boat last year just crunched up. By building the boats, he’s learned from past mistakes and how to fix them.
Sanchez said he hopes he and teammate Ryan England win first place this year in their boat Thunder Snail.
This is Amelia Schotter’s second year building boats as well.
Last year, she said her team did well, but didn’t place. Last year was basically trial and error. Her team had one idea, but found out it wouldn’t work so they had to try again. She said it was really fun last year and she wanted to do it again with her friends.
She said she and teammates Lorelei Powers, Lilly Schotter and Isadora Vega decided to do a different boat design than what was done last year. They added some of things that worked into the boat and hopes their boat, Survivors, will be successful.
This is Powers’ second year building boats and was able to meet new people during her first year. She said she had never heard about the Cardboard Regatta Race before last year and decided it sounded interesting. This year, she wanted to do it with her friends because it was fun last year.
Power said last year, her team focused on looks and that “failed miserably” and her team had to rebuild the boat about half way through the process. This year, they focused more on looks of the boat than she would have liked, but said it might or might not float during Saturday’s race.
She said it’s probably more than the process than anything.
This is Fareed Sultan Mohammed’s first time building a boat for the event, saying he thought it would be an interesting experience to build a boat and race is across the water.
Part of the process was for his team – made up of teammates Brenna Overman, Jordynn Henthorn and Kellen Mellentine - to make sure the measurements for their boat, Terrifying Tigers, was correct and making sure everything was done on time. One of the problems they had was getting enough duct tape to do it because they kept running out.
He said he hopes his boat stays afloat and his team is able to win first place.
Lincoln Rak is building a boat for the second year at Edgewood. His sister participated in the race while at Edgewood and Rak thought it sounded fun. Last year, Rak was also on the team that won first place.
He learned to pay attention to measurements for the boat and make sure they’re consistent to help build and manufacture the boat from the ground up.
Rak said he hopes he and teammates Jarvish Sriram, Holden Owens and Samuel Weaver are able to accomplish with their boat, Blackbeards, what Rak’s team was able to last year.
