We just spent a very relaxing and fun weekend together with WangBo and XiaoJie's family: we BBQed, we camped (well, in the living room) , and we rowed in the paper boat we made and won the second place! Yes, we made a big paper boat and we rowed it on a lake! It was fun!
The past weekend was the 5th annual Howard County Boat Float contest. Wang's family invited us to join the contest. We were on the same team--the Lion Team. The contest was to make a boat with cardboards and duct tapes only, and to rowed the boat across a distance on the lake. Whoever rowed the fastest, made the most fabulous boat, or sinked in the most unthinkable way would be rewarded. See their website here: http://www.hocoboatfloat.com/
It was our first time and we had no experience at all. After a brief discussion, we decided to make a simple 'box-like' boat, which fits one or two people. Someone thought the shape of the boat is closer to a coffin than to a box. Anyway, a coffin is a box.
Wang Bo and I were responsible for making the boat; ladies for 'wrapping' it with a big plastic sheet to 'seal' the boat. From the beginning of the boat making, we told the differences between neat girls and lousy boys. Wang and I initially just wanted to put a girl as a model on a flat cardboard sheet and lousily folded the paper around the model to form the shape of the boat. That idea was quickly overthrown by girls. Girls like neat things and straight lines are among them. So be it. We boys made a so-called neat boat by following girls' orders; girls wrapped the boat like a gift. By far, no one knew if the good-looking boat would sustain the moment of testing--being afloat beyond the distance to row.
One of our competitors made a very solid and beautifully aerodynamic-shaped boat that was basically covered by tapes. Among these two, whose boat would be more buoyant?
The moment of the truth finally came. Initially, we boys tended to be as heroic as possible by being the sailors. Soon, we discarded the heroic idea as a bystander left us a comment--"that would interesting!" after he peeked inside the boat and glanced over us, the sailors to be. My interpretation was "that would be interesting to see how two over-sized men, crowded in a tiny paper boat, tried to vainly rescue themselves from the inevitable fate." Instead, as being shown repeatedly in history, our ladies, as legend heroines, came to our rescues. They volunteered to be the sailors for being physically smaller and for being more agile.
Yet, our heroines did not have a good start for the flaw of the boat design. The bottom of the boat was too narrow, and the sides of the boat were not strong enough to resist water pressures. For that, our heroines got overthrown instantly out from the boat and Wenlei got injured.
"Never giving up" was the spirit behind of this contest, and we are the faithful followers of the spirit. Our remaining heroine, Xiao Jie, tried again alone. This time, she succeeded! She had a perfect sense of balance and used it beautifully while rowing the boat. She managed to keep the boat aloft from the start point till the destination. That was truly heroic!
Finally, we got the second place in the contest! It was fun to put theory into practice, and it is the contest I want to attend next year!
(Thank you for reading the whole article. By the way, don't blame me if I 'forgot' to mention that there were only two teams in our class.)
