Belmont Hill Form III students recently traveled to Concord River in Bedford, MA to test drive motorboats built in their Conceptual Physics class with Mr. Trautz and Mr. Tahan.

The boats were an applied physics and design project, in which the boys designed the boats using CAD software and prototyped them using markup models. The boats were tested in a 10-foot fluid dynamic model tank, after which the boys refined their designs and began building.

Throughout the project the boys learned essential lessons about hydrodynamics, fluid friction, Newton’s three laws of motion, power/work/energy concept, and potential and kinetic energy.