At Darlington School, physics students traded notebooks for paddles this week, putting their knowledge to the test in the school’s annual Physics Boat Race — a tradition that has been held for more than 30 years.
Armed with just two 4-by-8-foot sheets of cardboard and 60 yards of duct tape, students designed and built boats capable — at least in theory — of carrying them across Silver Lake without sinking Friday, May 8.
“It’s really a great way to tie everything they have learned and just make it a cumulative assessment of what they’ve done this whole year, and then we just turn it into a fun event,” said Monisha Patel, a physics teacher at Darlington.
The project challenges students to apply principles like buoyancy and calculations tied to mass and water displacement — concepts rooted in Archimedes’ principle. Before construction begins, students must determine how deep their boats will sit in the water and how high the sides need to be to stay afloat.
“They have to basically design, compute all the different calculations — how high the duct tape needs to come up, how high the water’s going to go,” said physics teacher Brendan Leezer. “It’s a culminating engineering event.”
While the science is serious, the atmosphere is anything but. Boats with creative names such as “Bubba Rig” and “The Lightning McQueens” and complex designs filled the water as classmates, families and community members gathered to watch — cheering whether vessels made it across or sank immediately.
Bonus points are awarded to teams that are able to paddle across the lake successfully. Of the 25 teams that competed, 12 successfully made it across the lake. For many students, the biggest takeaway is not the bonus points — it’s the experience.
“They look forward to it from the first day of class,” said Patel. “It’s just fun to see their excitement and their creativity.”
The event has become a lasting tradition at Darlington, drawing alumni and even parents who once competed in the same race decades ago.
“At the end of the day, it’s a memory that they’re going to have forever,” Leezer said. “They carry it with them for a long time.”
Those who crossed the finish line are not only awarded with more bonus points than the rest, but they also earn bragging rights that can last for years.
The top three finishers are listed below:
1st place — Wes Knight, Henry Patel, Ronik Patel and Barrett Woods.
2nd place — Clara Davis, Anne Walker Ellington and Allie Reynolds.
3rd place — Addison Hightower, Jillian Loy, Evy Molnar and Madison Paxten
This article was originally published in the Rome News-Tribune by Baylen Parker on May 16, 2026.
Photo by Jacky Zhu ('28)
Photo by Jacky Zhu ('28)
