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    Home » How many coins to sink a boat? – STEM Challenge

    How many coins to sink a boat? – STEM Challenge

    May 11, 2020 By Emma Vanstone Leave a Comment

    Today’s STEM Challenge is super simple. The aim is to find out how many coins it takes to sink a foil boat.

    First we cleaned up our treasure, then we made different sized tinfoil boats and tried to sink them!

    If you want to take the pirate theme further, we love making treasure maps with cold tea and coffee too!

    How to clean coins

    To clean your coins, just put them in vinegar for a couple of hours and they’ll soon be super shiny! If you want to turn this into more of an investigation there are a few other coin cleaning methods you could try.

    • Scrub the coins with a baking soda paste ( make this by mixing a little water with baking soda )
    • Soak in lemon Juice
    • Soak in a fizzy drink – don’t drink the fizzy drink afterwards!
    Coins cleaned with vinegar. 3 shiny and one that hasn't been cleaned.

    Sink the Boats

    You’ll need

    Tin foil

    Coins

    Instructions

    Construct a boat with tinfoil.

    Image of a boat made from aluminium foil with a playmobil person inside
    Boat made from kitchen foil

    Check the boat floats.

    Once you’re happy the boat floats add coins slowly to find out how many coins it takes to make it sink.

    Try spreading the coins out for the first attempt and then try again but place all the coins at one end.

    tinfoil boat with a toy figure and coins inside
    Foil boat filled with coins

    Remember to make sure the coins are dried for each boat you test.

    Boat STEM Challenge Extension Tasks

    Repeat the investigation, but this time use different sized foil boats. Do smaller boats sink with less coins?

    Make boats from recycled materials and work out how much weight it takes to make each one sink.

    boats made from recycled material and lemon skin
    Mini boats for a science challenge

    What makes an object float?

    Things float if they are less dense than the liquid they are in ( in this case water ). If they are more dense they sink.

    Adding coins to the boats increased the density and when the density became greater than that of water the boat sank.

    More STEM Challenges for Kids

    We’ve got printable STEM Challenge cards containing 12 fun and super simple STEM challenges for kids, including building rafts, super long paper chains and fizzy potions.

    STEM Challenge cards

    Our newspaper STEM Challenges are great fun too! Make dens, shoes and even famous landmarks using just newspaper and tape!

    Sink the boat pirate STEM challenge. Image of a small boat made from foil for a STEM Challenge

    Last Updated on July 16, 2021 by Emma Vanstone

    « Easy at Home Science Projects for Kids
    Mini Magnet Maze »

    Safety Notice

    Science Sparks ( Wild Sparks Enterprises Ltd ) are not liable for the actions of activity of any person who uses the information in this resource or in any of the suggested further resources. Science Sparks assume no liability with regard to injuries or damage to property that may occur as a result of using the information and carrying out the practical activities contained in this resource or in any of the suggested further resources.

    These activities are designed to be carried out by children working with a parent, guardian or other appropriate adult. The adult involved is fully responsible for ensuring that the activities are carried out safely.

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