Students investigate what design choices make a small boat strong, stable, and ready for competition by designing, building, and testing a scaled-down boat for the Red Hook Regatta. Working with insights from Pioneer Works, Red Hook Initiative, and Billion Oyster Project, they apply CAD in Onshape, basic electronics, and remote-control systems to create and refine prototypes through weekly design-review gallery walks and test runs. The experience builds content expertise alongside collaboration, communication, critical thinking, self-direction, and academic mindset through a public, community-connected challenge. Daily build check-ins, partner reflections after failures, and the launch design jam help students track growth, revise with evidence, and see themselves as capable makers solving a real problem.

Students will use Onshape to design and revise a scaled boat model, apply basic electronics and remote-control systems, and test how hull shape, weight distribution, buoyancy, and stability affect performance in competition. They will strengthen critical thinking by using evidence from test runs, sketches, and weekly design-review gallery walks to justify design choices and improve prototypes. Students will build collaboration and communication through shared team roles, partner interviews, feedback routines, and public presentation of their process with community partners including Pioneer Works, Red Hook Initiative, and Billion Oyster Project. Students will develop self-direction and academic mindset through daily check-ins and post-test reflections that track technical learning, teamwork, persistence, and response to failure.

Students will create interview notes and concept sketches from the Splash and Sketch Social, followed by simple paper-and-cardboard test models that help teams compare early ideas for hull shape, balance, and control. As the project progresses, teams will produce Onshape CAD files, electronics and remote-control system plans, testing logs, revision sketches, and weekly design-review gallery walk displays that show evidence of decisions and improvements. The culminating product is a scaled-down 3D modeled and printed boat, built for competition and refined through multiple test runs. Students will also create a short final presentation or exhibit for peers and community partners from Pioneer Works, Red Hook Initiative, and Billion Oyster Project that explains their design choices, test data, and learning.

Open with a Splash and Sketch Social: students interview a partner about what makes a boat competitive, then co-build a quick paper-and-cardboard mini boat and test it in water. Invite Pioneer Works, Red Hook Initiative, and Billion Oyster Project partners to share a short challenge brief about Red Hook waterways, community design, and why boat performance matters in this local event. After testing, students do a fast gallery walk to compare stability, speed, and steering ideas, then name questions they have about CAD in Onshape, basic electronics, and remote-control systems. Close by introducing the design challenge to create a scaled-down competition-ready boat and framing the driving question about what design choices make a small boat strong, stable, and ready for competition.

Host a Red Hook Regatta Showcase at Pioneer Works or with Red Hook Initiative where teams display their scaled boat models, CAD files from Onshape, electronics layouts, test data, and revision notes before a live water trial or race. Invite families, community members, and partners from Billion Oyster Project to circulate through a gallery walk and ask students to explain how their design choices improved strength, stability, and performance. Each team should give a short presentation on one major failure, one redesign decision, and how collaboration shaped the final build, using evidence from weekly design reviews and test runs. End with a public reflection wall or video booth where students share what they learned about engineering, teamwork, and managing setbacks during the project.