YAM  
  scene  
    search
 

home   about   address   advertise   submit   subscribe   write

depts.
notes
arts
findings
forum
AYA
editor
last look
letters
L&V
milestones
Old Yale
Q&A
scene
sports
webwatching
where
 
archives
date
 
   

advertisingview classifieds
demographics
rates & deadlines
request a media kit
place a classified ad

 
   

External Links

University homepage
Admissions
Association of Yale Alumni
Athletics
Yale Daily News
Office of Public Affairs
School of Architecture
School of Art
Divinity School
School of Drama
Faculty of Engineering
Forestry and Environmental Studies
Graduate School
Law School
School of Management
School of Medicine
School of Music
School of Nursing
School of Public Health

   

Send comments or suggestions to: Web editor

The Yale Alumni Magazine is owned and operated by Yale Alumni Publications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation independent of Yale University. The content of the magazine is the responsibility of the editors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yale or its officers.

 
 
 

Going Down With the Ship

scene

Sophia Popova '11 and Kenneth Leveille '11 (at right, with bubbles) were the makers, captains, and, ultimately, victims of their own small craft in the Yale Engineering Design Team cardboard boat race on September 15. The undergraduate group holds the race every year, partly for sheer fun, partly to give students some hands-on design experience. Participants have four hours to build a two-person craft out of cardboard and duct tape. "You get a pretty good idea of the engineering principles involved in building a boat," says Design Team president Jonathan Hartman '09, "when you put it in the water and it tips over because you left something out."

Some boat builders had prepped with complex physics equations, but Popova says she and Leveille built by intuition. They wanted a canoe-like boat with a wide base; other than that, "we absolutely didn't really know what we were doing." It worked, though. They finished the full half-lap in Payne Whitney's main exhibition pool afloat and without help -- only three out of eight boats managed that -- and tied for first place (47 seconds). After winning, says Popova, "we sat in it until it finally sank."

 

 
 
 

Copyright ©2008, Yale Alumni Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.
Send comments or suggestions to Web editor.

Yale Alumni Magazine, PO Box 1905, New Haven, CT 06509-1905, USA.
yam@yale.edu